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A  UTHOR : 


GROTE,  JOHN 


J». 


TITLE: 


EXPLORATIO 
PHILOSOPHICA 

PLACE: 

CAMBRIDGE 

DATE: 

1900 


COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARIES 
PRESERVATION  DEPARTMENT 


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EXPLOKATIO    PHILOSOPHICA 

PART   I 


^ik 


EXPLOKATIO    PHILOSOPHICA 


PART    I 


Honton:    C.  J.   CLAY   and  SONS, 

CAMBRIDGE   UNIVERSITY  PRESS  WAREHOUSE. 

AVE  MARIA  LANE. 

fflosfloto:    50,  WELLINGTON  8TRBBT. 


leipjifl:    F.  A.  BR0CKHAU8. 

^(to  Sork:   THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 

Vombas:    E.  SEYMOUR  HALE. 


-BY 


JOHN   GROTE,   B.D. 


SENIOR    FBIiliOW    OF    TRINITY    COLLEGE 
AND   PROFESSOR   OF   MORAL   PHILOSOPHY   IN   THE   UNIVERSITY   OF   CAMBRIDGE 


[PUBLISHED,  1865:   REISSUED,  1900] 


.  ^^' 


CAMBRIDGE 
AT    THE    UNIVERSITY    PRESS 

MDCCCC 

[All  Right*  reserved] 


\ 


I     1 


t  A 


CONTENTS. 


Cambritige : 

PBINTBD   AT  THE    UNIVRRSITT   PRE88. 


rA«B 

Introduction ^ 

CHAPTER  I. 
Phenomenalism    ..•..•t«««*^ 

CHAPTER  II. 
Philosopht  and  Consciousness      ...••§•        1* 

CHAPTER  III. 
Sensation,  Intelligence,  and  Will  .       .       .      ' .       •       .3* 

CHAPTER  IV. 

Feeriee's  Institutes  of  Metaphysio  ^ 

» 

CHAPTER  V, 
Sir  William  Hamilton's  Lectures  on  Metaphysics       .       .      >     8 

^  CHAPTER  VI. 

^    The  Scale  op  Sensation  oe  Knowledge 1^ 

^  CHAPTER  VII. 

^  Sib  William  Hamilton— Consciousness  op  Matter       •       .       .125 

*S  CHAPTER  VIIL 

*^    Loqio—Mb  Mill ,       ,       146 

r  • 


o 


800482 


? 


i 

I 


* 


VI 


CONTENTS. 
CHAPTER  IX. 


Mill's  Logic— contintjkd 


VAOl 


..   176 


1 


CHAPTER  X 
Db  Whbwell's  Philosophy  of  Soienob 


203 


CHAPTER  XL 
The  Fundamental  Antithesis  of  Philosophy       .       .      •       .226 


CHAPTER  XIL 
The  Inteepeetation  of  Natueb    . 


242 


CHAPTER  XIII. 


Substance  and  Medium 


246 


I        ■ 


•        • 


INTRODUCTION. 


> 


I  WILL  first  give  an  account  of  the  circumstances 
of  the  publication  of  these  '  rough  notes',  and  then  of 
the  system  of  philosophy,  if  so  it  is  to  be  called,  con- 
tained in  them. 

They  represent  a  continued  general  thinking  on  the 
subjects  to  which  they  relate,  though  they  are  rather 
hastily  put  together  as  regards  their  particular  form. 
But  there  is  nothing  hasty  or  extemporaneous  in  such 
thought  as  they  may  contain. 

A  not  inconsiderable  portion  of  them  was  written 
two  years  since,  on  the  following  occasion. 

After  the  publication  of  Mr  MilFs  small  book  on 
Utilitarianism,  I  had  the  intention  of  writing  some- 
thing in  answer  to  him  on  that  subject,  and  had  actu- 
ally begun  the  printing  of  the  result  of  this  intention. 
I  was  led,  in  connexion  with  this,  to  put  together  the 
intellectual  views  on  which  the  moral  view  rested,  or 
which  had  something  of  the  character  of '  prolegomena ' 
to  it,  and  had  meant  if  they  should  come  within  reason- 
able limits,  to  publish  them  in  an  Appendix. 

Being  of  a  nature  hesitating  and  irresolute,  I 
altered  my  mind  as  to  this :  and  though  at  first  sti- 
mulated to  controversy,  which  of  itself  I  do  not  think 
I  should  have  shrunk  from,  I  thought  that  what, 
in  regard  of  the  subject,  was  likely  to  be  most  useful 
was  another  course,  and  accordingly  determined  rather 


VUl 


INTRODUCTION. 


to   put   together,   in  an  uncontroversial    form,   what 
seemed   to  me  the  truth,    in    opposition  to  what  I 

thought  error. 

This,  if  it  please  God,  is  in  the  way  of  being  accom- 
plished, subject  to  all  the  delays  which  interest  in 
other  employments,  uncertain  health,  and  some  not,  I 
think,  uncalled  for  scrupulousness  and  anxiety  as  to 
what  one  writes  on  a  subject  so  important,  may  throw 
in  the  way  of  it.  But  in  the  meantime,  I  have  thought 
it  might  be  as  well  to  return  upon  the  intellectual 
views  with  which  the  moral  view  connects  itself,  and  to 
re-examine  them  and  test  them. 

The  result  is  the  publication  of  these  pages:  to 
which,  for  reasons  which  will  appear,  I  have  not 
attempted  to  give  any  very  regular  form  or  artistic 
completeness.  This  explanation  is  almost  necessary  for 
the  understanding  of  the  beginning  of  them,  which  is 
abrupt,  and  refers,  it  will  be  seen,  to  something  as 
going  before,  and  which  I  thought  it  was  as  well  to 
leave  so  referring.  But  I  have  carefully  avoided  in 
the  following  pages  all  reference  to  Morals  or  Ethics, 
and  (except  most  incidentally)  all  approbation  or  dis- 
approbation of  anything  in  a  moral  view  or  as  to  moral 
tendency.  I  have  endeavoured  to  bring  together,  for 
comparison,  views,  the  respective  holders  of  which 
would  probably  thank  me  very  little  for  my  trouble : 
but  philosophical  controversy  is  a  worse  confusion  than 
a  battle  without  generals  or  discipline,  and  as  we  come 
more  to  morals  and  ethics  the  dust  and  smoke  become 
tenfold  worse.  I  have  wished  therefore  to  examine 
some  things  in  the  earlier  and  clearer  atmosphere.  I 
have  nothing  to  do  here  with  any  results  to  which  opi- 
nions may  lead,  or  with  any  supposed  opinions  held  by 
any  one  beyond  what  the  books  which  I  notice  contain. 


INTRODUCTION. 


IX 


I  have  now  to  give  a  short  account  of  the  na- 
ture of  the  philosophy  which  these  'rough  notes* 
exhibit  or  involve. 

It  perhaps  may  be  said,  that  there  are  three  main 
heads  or  kinds  of  philosophy  in  England  at  present, 
each  of  which  it  seems  to  me  has  appendant  error:  and 
it  is  against  these  errors  that  a  great  deal  of  what  I  say 
is  directed. 

Of  these  three  kinds  of  philosophy,  as  I  call  them, 
the  first  which  I  will  mention  is  'the  Philosophy  of 
the  Human  Mind'  or  Psychology,  and  there  appears  to 
me  to  attach  itself  to  a  great  deal  of  that  a  very  mis- 
taken view,  which  I  have  called  generally  the  wrong 
psychology  or  mis-psychology. 

For  the  particular  nature  of  this  error  I  must  refer 
to  what  follows,  and  will  only  briefly  now  say  about  it, 
that  it  consists,  substantially,  in  the  attempt  to  analyze 
our  consciousness  while  nevertheless  we  suppose  our- 
selves, who  have  the  consciousness,  to  be  particular 
local  beings  in  the  midst  of  an  universe  of  things  or 
objects  similar  to  what  we  ourselves  are.  My  feeling 
about  the  whole  'Philosophy  of  the  Human  Mind' 
is  this :  that  at  present  it  is  attacked,  and  with  reason, 
from  two  opposite  sides;  that  its  philosophy  will  not 
satisfy  philosophers,  nor  its  physiology  physiologists; 
and  that  it  will  have  to  divide  itself,  for  utilitv  and 
productiveness,  into  two  lines  of  thought,  very  different, 
rarely  likely  to  be  pursued  by  the  same  people,  each 
very  likely  to  be  despised  by  those  who  sympathize 
with  the  other,  but  quite  consistent  the  one  with  the 
other,  and  really  of  such  a  nature,  that  the  more  purely 
and  independently  each  takes  its  own  way,  the  better  is 
it  likely  to  be  not  only  for  itself,  but  also  for  the  other. 
I  am  myself  very  much  of  opinion  that  the  old 


X  -INTRODUCTION. 

vein  of  the  Philosophy  of  the  Human  Mind,  or  noo- 
psychology,  is  worked  out,  and  that  whatever  there 
was  to  be  got  from  it  (not  much,  I  think,   ever)  is 

got  already. 

But  it  seems  to  me  that  the  way  is  singularly  open 
and  inviting  now  for  a  good  physio-psychology,  as  I 
should  call  it,  by  which  however  I  mean  something 
possibly  very  different  from  what  several  who  have 
already  treated  that  subject  would  mean. 

^  Such  a  study  is  a  mental  and  moral  human  ana- 
tomy, and  a  mental  and  moral  comparative  anatomy : 
but  I  do  not  believe  that  these,  or  either  of  them,  can 
ever  be  pursued  with  good  result  unless  the  pursuers  of 
them  dismiss  from  their  minds  what  I  should  call 
philosophy — either  looking  upon  it  as  a  different  line  of 
thought,  or  else  ignoring  it— in  any  case  not  thinking  that 
it  is  their  science  which  will  answer  the  higher  questions 

V  of  the  human  mind,  or  tell  us  what  we  ought  to  do. 
I  have  always  had  a  very  strong  opinion  that  the 
later  psychology,  or  Philosophy  of  the  Human  Mind, 
has  neglected  a  large  province  of  consideration  which 
really  belonged  to  it,  in  its  failing  to  take  notice 
of,  and  to  try  to  bring  into  relation  with  human  in- 
telligence, the  various  intelligence  of  our  humbler 
fellow-creatures  in  the  universe,  the  lower  animals: 
mind  belongs  to  them  as  well  as  to  us.  Mental  human 
anatomy,  which  is  of  two  kinds,  the  anatomy  of  the 
body  pursued  as  far  as  it  can  be  in  the  direction  of 
the  mind,  and  the  observation  of  the  results  of  the 
action  of  mind  in  connexion  with  this — such  psychology 
always  has  considered  in  its  province,  though  lately^ 
it  has  been  pursued  with  special  fruit:  we  want  now 
more  of  mental  comparative  anatomy,  or  the  study  of 
the  varieties  o{  animal  inteUigence,  above  alluded  to.    ' 


INTRODUCTION. 


XI 


But  for  all  this  we  must  disengage  psychology  from 
the  philosophy  which  it  has  mingled  with  itself,  and 
which  in  all  probability  it  will  try  still  to  mingle  with 
itself.  Hitherto  the  result  of  its  doing  so  has  been 
in  the  main  that  confusion  of  thought  on  which  I  have 
dwelt  at  length  in  the  following  pages.  Now  probably 
its  effort  will  be  to  furnish  a  philosophy  (less  con- 
fused indeed)  from  itself  better  understood  than  before, 
and  it  will  tell  us  that  we  must  be  satisfied  with  that 
philosophy.  In  my  view,  this  course  will  effectually 
ruin  itself. 

Philosophy,  by  which  I  mean  the  study  of  thought 
and  feeling  not  as  we  see  them  variously  associated 
with  corporeal  organization,  and  producing  various 
results  in  the  universe,  but  as  we  understand,  think, 
feel  them  of  ourselves  and  from  within,  is  something 
to  me  of  an  entirely  different  nature,  and  leads  to 
entirely  different  fields  of  speculation  from  the  physio- 
psychology  which  I  have  been  speaking  of.  I  think 
that  those  who  have  the  truest  view  of  the  one  will  also 
have  the  truest  of  the  other.  It  does  not  seem  to 
me  that  anything,  for  instance,  as  to  our  moral  action 
waits  for  a  better  physio-psychology,  except  in  that 
subordinate  degree  in  which  such  action  is  likely  to 
be  altered  and  benefited  by  any  increase  of  our  know- 
ledge of  any  kind.  In  my  view,  the  question  of  the 
relation  of  our  mind  to  our  corporeal  organization,  and 
the  question  of  the  distribution  of  mind  more  or  less 
like  ours  through  various  organizations,  are  the  two 
questions  of  physics  far  the  most  interesting:  but  they 
are  physics  after  all.  Whatever  may  be  found  out 
about  them  seems  to  me  to  have  quite  a  subordinate 
bearing  upon  the  great  questions  of  the  nature  of  know- 
ledge and  of  moral  sentiments  and  obligations.    These 


I 


Xll 


INTRODUCTION. 


belong  to  what  I  have  called  philosophy,  which  rises 
high  above  the  other,  or  if  we  prefer  the  language, 
underHes  it  as  its  foundation :  how,  I  shall  discuss  in 
the  following  pages. 

I  think  then  that  the  '  Philosophy  of  the  Human 
Mind'  is  now  in  the  way  to  divide  itself  into  different 
branches,  all,  it  seems  to  me,  hopeful  and  promising 
result  :  the  manner  in  which  its  method  has  hitherto 
been  faulty  is  one  of  the  matters  of  my  discussion. 

The  second  kind  of  philosophy  which  we  have  among 
us  is  the  true  and  real  philosophy,  this  which  I  have 
described  as  one  line  of  those  into  which  the  Philosophy 
of  the  Human  Mind  is  likely  to  divide  itself:  but  it 
seems  to  have  an  appendant  error  of  great  import- 
ance, which  I  have  described  in  the  ensuing  pages 
notionalism'   and   'relativism',   terms  in  a  great 


INTRODUCTION. 


Xlll 


as 


measure,  though  perhaps  not  quite,  equivalent. 

I  will  only  briefly  describe  this  here  as  the  realizing 
(and  any  realizing  must  be  mis-realizing,  wrongly 
realizing)  our  logical  terms.  We  get  from  this  what 
we  may  call  a  philosophy  of  'notions',  and  knowledge, 
instead  of  bringing  us  into  real  contact  with  the  thing 
we  know,  appears  as  something  between  us  and  it, 
either  altering  its  real  reality  to  accommodate  it  to  us, 
or  forming  some  screen  or  barrier  between  us  and  it, 
or  some  way  disguising  it — ^but  on  this  I  shall  have 
to  speak  in  abundance. 

I  shall  have  to  consider,  against  a  good  deal  of  the 
third  kind  of  philosophy  which  I  have  yet  to  speak 
of,  that  the  mind  is  really  active,  and  that  its  proper 
creations,  so  to  call  them,  are  realities;  but,  also,  against 
such  views  as  I  have  just  mentioned,  that  its  logical 
creations  are  for  a  temporary  purpose  only,  and  that 
the  greatest  care  must  be  taken  not  to  realize  them  : 


that  a  merely  logical  philosophy  is  worse  than  none,  and 
much  worse  than  that  which  I  am  now  going  to  mention. 

The  third  kind  of  philosophy,  though  it  is  not 
properly  philosophy,  and  is  only  good  in  its  own  place 
when  it  does  not  claim  to  be  so,  is  that  manner  of 
looking  at  the  universe  to  which  belongs  the  physio- 
psychology  of  which  I  lately  spoke  :  and  what  I  said 
about  that  applies  to  the  many  other  sciences  into  which 
this  study  of  the  universe  divides  itself.  The  error 
belonging  to  it  consists  in  its  claiming  to  be  philo- 
sophy, or  claiming  to  be  all  that  need  be  considered. 
This  error  I  have  called  ultra-phenomenalism  or  mis- 
phenomenalism,  and  I  have  given  the  reasons  for  my 
language  :  it  is  the  same  manner  .of  thought  as  is  very 
frequently  called  *  positivism  \ 

A  real  philosophy  without  notionalism,  and  a  real, 
honest,  thorough,  study  of  nature  without  the  feeling 
that  we  are  to  find  our  philosophy  and  morality,  more 
than  very  subordinately,  there — these  are  the  two  things 
which  I  should  like  to  see  co-existing,  and  which  I 
should  think  not  only  might  co-exist,  but  would  each 
be  the  better  for  the  existence  of  the  other :  and  for 
both  alike  is  needed  a  good  logic,  in  which  we  are 
neither  on  the  one  side  afraid  of  logical  suppositions 
and  abstractions,  nor  on  the  other  hand  disposed  to 
rest  in  them  as  if  the  right  dealing  with  them  was  the 
knowledge,  and  they  all  the  furniture  our  mind  needed : 
and  with  all  these  a  good  history  of  advance  of  human 
thought  and  feeling,  upon  which  depends  what  I  have 
in  these  pages  called  '  Real '  Logic :  all  these  things 
seem  to  me  to  belong  the  one  to  the  other :  the  war- 
fare constantly  carried  on  between  the  partizans  of 
one  and  another  seems  quite  uncalled  for,  and  un- 
reasonable.    Of  them   all,  the  'philosophy'  which  I 


!SP 


XIV 


INTRODUCTION. 


have  named  the  first  is  in  my  view  the  most  important, 
as  that  on  which  all  the  rest  depend,  and  in  which 
they  all  find  their  application.  It  is  what  all  begins 
with  for  us,  for  all  that  we  call  existence  is  for  us  a 
thought  of  ours,  which  it  belongs  to  that  philosophy  to 
discuss  the  nature,  meaning,  validity  of  It  is  what  on 
the  other  side,  is  concerned  with  that  which  we  must 
know  and  have  settled  for  ourselves  before  we  can,  with 
reason,  apply  our  knowledge  of  experience  to  action : 
namely,  what  we  want :  what  we  mean  to  do  with 
ourselves,  what  ends  we  wish  to  gain,  what  it  is  well 
we  should  do,  what  we  are  called  upon  to  do :  this 
is  the  region  of  ideals,  of  freedom,  and  of  choice,  where 
no  positive  knowledge  or  knowledge  of  experience  can 
help  us  except  in  those  subordinate  manners  to  which 
I  have  alluded,  as  to  judge  what  is  attainable,  or  by 
what  means  we  may  best  gain  our  end. 

The  purpose  then  of  what  I  have  here  written  is  to 
clear  the  ground,  or  to  do  what  I  could  to  help  clear 
thought,  both  in  respect  of  philosophy  and  of  physical 
view  of  nature :  the  one  is  quite  as  interesting  to  me 
as  the  other,  and  they  seem  to  me,  rightly  pursued,  to 
be  mutually  helpful,  not  antagonistic.  A  great  deal  of 
the  Philosophy  of  the  Human  Mind  damages  both, 
especially  philosophy  proper,  by  its  confusion  of  view — 
this  I  have  endeavoured  to  exhibit :  *  notionalism '  or 
*  relativism'  damages  both,  philosophy  by  cutting  off 
from  it  all  life,  and  fruit,  and  prospect,  the  view  of 
nature  by  making  us  think  and  talk  of  abstractions 
where  they  are  out  of  place,  and  where  we  want  to  be 
in  the  fresh  and  open  air  of  good  or  rightly  applied 
phenomenalism  (as  I  have  called  it),  looking  at  things 
as  they  are  before  our  eyes  without  perplexing  our- 
selves by  thought  as  to  how  we  know  them  or  what 


INTRODUCTION. 


XV 


they  may  be  besides.  Mis-phenomenalism  or  positiv- 
ism damages  the  study  of  nature  and  of  fact  in  this 
way,  that  by  the  expecting  from  it,  and  the  trying  to 
effect  by  it,  what  does  not  belong  to  it,  it  raises  sus- 
picion against  it,  and  what  is  worse,  tends  sometimes 
to  make  its  cultivators  pursue  it  with  a  sort  of  mis- 
giving, as  if  this  suspicion  really  attached  to  it,  and  as 
if  fidelity  to  it  really  required  that  at  whatever  sacrifice, 
we  should  abnegate,  at  its  apparent  bidding,  everything 
which  I  should  call  our  higher  nature,  and  all  our 
worthier  beliefs  and  aspirations.  What  I  have  called 
philosophy  is  of  course  to  such  positivism  of  the  nature 
of  a  dream,  and  that  a  foolish  and  pernicious  one. 

The  manner  in  which  I  have  tried  to  help  clear 
thought  I  must  leave  the  following  pages  to  show  for 
themselves — I  will  only  mention  one  thing  here. 

It  is  in  reference  to  w^hat  I  may  call  the  co- 
ordinating facts  of  mind  and  matter,  as  what  go  to- 
gether to  make  up  the  universe.  This  I  have  variously 
commented  on.  I  think  the  purpose  of  what  I  have 
said  may  be  better  understood  through  a  few  words 
here  to  the  following  effect. 

One  of  the  branches  of  science  in  which  perhaps  at 
this  moment  (in  company  probably  with  many  others) 
I  feel  special  interest  on  account  of  the  manner  in 
which  it  seems  to  promise  fruit,  is  the  study  of  what  we 
may  call  '  the  facts  of  mind '  as  we  may  see,  observe, 
experiment,  upon  them  in  the  universe,  both  in  various 
human  individuals  with  corporeal  organizations  indi- 
vidually  different,  and  in  various  animals  (so  far  as 
we  can  thus  study  them)  with  such  organizations  dif- 
fering generically. 

Facts  of  mind  of  this  character  are  facts  of  the 
universe,  and  may  legitimately  be  co-ordinated  with 


xvl 


INTRODUCTION. 


facts  of  matter,  and  knowledge  about  them  must  be  pur- 
sued in  the  same  manner  in  which  the  study  of  the  facts 
of  matter  is — by  observation,  experiment,  induction. 

But  there  are  facts  of  mind,  and  what  are  more  pro- 
perly described  as  '  facts  of  mind '  than  these  are,  which 
are  not  at  all  of  this  character,  but  are  of  such   a 
nature,  that  so  far  from  being  in  any  way  what  can  be 
co-ordinated  with  facts  of  matter  to  make  up  the  uni- 
verse, the  whole  universe  is  itself  one  such  fact  of  mind 
to  us — when  we  say  it  is,  we  mean  that  we  believe  in  it 
— it  is  the  way  in  which  we  think,  something  which 
our  thought  sets  before  us — and  there  are  other  such 
facts  of  mind  besides  this.     The  great  fact  of  the  kind 
is  human  freedom,  liberty,  choice.     Mind,  as  we  study 
it  for  instance  in  various  animal  organizations  following 
various  laws,  is  something  different  from  mind  (is  we 
feel  it,  or  ourselves,  thinking  and  choosing  what  we  will 
do  :  and  the  generic  mind  in  such  organizations,  with 
its  future,  so  to  speak,  marked  out  for  it  by  nature,  is 
something  different  from  our  mind  as  we  feel  it,  which 
is  more  even  than  humanly  generic  or  generically  hu- 
man— for  we  have  a  free  view  around  us — we  may  see 
what  is  good  to  be  done,  and  choose  what  we  will  act 
for,  not  (in  this  case)  as  meny  but  as  moral  beings,  who 
can  see  even  beyond  their  manhood  or  proper  kind,  and 
can  aspire  to  raise  themselves  and  that  kind — when  we 
have  chosen  indeed,  it  is  as  men  that  we  shall  have  to 
act:   we  have  but  human  powers,  though  we  have  a 
choice  going  beyond  known  or  proper  humanity :  and 
thus,  in  a  subordinate  way,  the  facts  of  mind  which  may 
be  physically  studied  are  of  vast  consequence  :  but  the 
real  and  great  facts  of  mind  are  the  others.    And  the 
treatment  of  these,  in  both  an  intellectual  and  moral 
view,  is  what  I  have  called  philosophy :  the  examina- 


INTRODUCTION. 


xvii 


tion  what  knowledge  is,  how  we  know,  and  what  we 
mean  by  certainty  and  truth:  the  examination  what 
liberty  or  choice  is,  what  is  the  meaning  of  a  purpose 
or  ideal  of  action,  what  purposes  or  ideals  present  them- 
selves to  us,  what  we  are  to  think  about  them. 

Unless  we  have  philosophy  of  this  kind,  whatever 
we  can  make  of  it,  as   a  companion  or  pendant,  it 
seems  to  me  that  we  cannot  follow  either  of  the  two 
lines  of  thought  which  at  this  moment  are  of  special 
interest,  without  getting  into  a  hopeless  perplexity  as 
to  the  application  of  them  to  our  action.     By  these  two 
lines  of  thought  I  mean,  the  one,  the  physio-psychology 
of  which  I  have  spoken :  the  other,  the  past  history  of 
the  human  race,  both  intellectual  and  moral  or  civil. 
If  we  wait  to  know  what  we  ought  to  think  about  our- 
selves and  what  we  are  to  do  (more  than  subordinately) 
upon  these  studies,  not  only  shall  we  be  in  an  unnatural 
suspense,  but  we  can  hardly  fail  to  get  more  and  more 
into  a  logical  perplexity,  and  we  shall  injure  these  studies 
themselves.    Already  it  is  evident  that  the  study  of\ 
human   progress,  or  human  developement,  or  civiliza- 
tion, is  in  a  confusion  most  difficult  to  disentangle,  on 
account  of  people's  having  failed  to  present  to  them- 
selves as  two  different  notions,  the  progressive  improve- 
ment, on  the  one  side,  of  beings  with  liberty,  enterprize, 
aspiringness,  and  desire  to  do  the  best  and  the  right  and 
to  elevate  their  nature,  and,  on  the  other,  such  a  pro- 
gressive developement  as  we  may  conceive  to  take  place 
in  any  kind  of  beings  (or  zoocosm  as  I  have  later  called 
it,  i,  e,  system  of  kinds)  in  consequence  of  any  natural 
tendencies  in  them  or  circumstances  about  them,  inde- 
pendent of  such  free  choice  and  aspiringness.    In  respect/ 
of  the  great  and  important  science  of  the  philosophy  of 
history,  as  we  call  it,  it  seems  to  me  that  the  prospect  is 

b 


xvm 


INTRODUCTION. 


bad  for  the  very  reason  which  makes  some  think  it  good: 
namely,  that  we  are  now  looking  to  it  for  our  morality: 
we  want  to  find  out  from  it  what  I  am  sure  we  cannot 
find  out  from  it  without  perverting  it,  namely,  what 
we  ought  to  do :  we  shaU  lose  our  power  of  moral 
judgment  in  criticizing  what  man  has  done,  and  after 
all  we  shall  never  be  able  to  say  why  what  man  has 
done  (whatever  it  may  be)  is,  as  such,  the  thing  which 

we  ought  to  do  now. 

The  world  is  in  some  respects  getting  old,  and  its 
value  for  the  history  of  the  past,  whether  the  inteUec- 
tual  history  of  man's  successive  discovery  of  things,  ot 
the  moral  history  of  his  advance  in  civilization,  may  be 
taken  as  one  sign  of  this :  at  the  same  time  the  world 
is  in  some  respects  as  young  as,  or,  if  one  might  ven- 
ture  the  expression,  more  young  than,  ever,  and  never 
I  suppose  were  hopefulness  and  enterprize  more  abund- 
ant.     No  one  can  feel  more  interest  in  history  of  all 
kinds  than  I  do:  almost,  perhaps  too  much.     But  the 
tendency  of  questions  and  subjects  of  aU  kinds  at  this 
time  to  run  to  history,  if  I  may  so  express  it,  amounts, 
in  many  cases,  to  a  blinking  the  great  and  real  ques- 
tions, which  ought  not  to  be  encouraged.     This  histo- 
rical tendency  is  a  part  of  the  character  of  mind  which 
may  be  caUed  'positivism',  though  it  spreads  widely 
beyond  the  circle  of  those  who  would  accept  the  name. 
But  roughly,  the  principle  of  this  tendency  is  the  fol- 
lowing :'^To  understand  things,  you  must  understand 
their  history :  or  perhaps,  we  cannot  understand  things : 
all  that  we  can  understand  is  their  history.    For  things 
we  might  put  '  men' :  the  study  of  the  history  of  man 
is  now^put  before  us  as  that  by  means  of  which  we  are 
to  understand  man  himself,  and  know  what  we  ought 
to  do. 


INTRODUCTION. 


XIX 


1  will  not  say  that  the  truth  lies  in  the  exact  oppo- 
site of  this,  but  I  will  say  that  it  lies  a  good  deal  nearer 
to  that  extremity  than  to  the  other.     In  speakino*^  in 
what  follows,  of  Mr  Mill's  Logic,  I  have  commented  on 
the  manner  in  which  he  gives  attention  (as  I  have 
expressed  it)  to  what  goes  on  in  the  universe,  which  we 
come  to  believe  upon  evidence  as  we  come  to  believe 
any  ordinary  fact,  rather  than  to  what  is  in  the  uni- 
verse, which,  in  whatever  way,  we  come  to  know,  con- 
ceive, perceive.     And  yet  what  goes  on,  as  the  fact,  in 
the   universe,   is  that  the  beings  and  things   in  the 
universe    do   this    and   that,    change  in  this  or  that 
manner :  the  beings  and  things  are  of  prior  conside- 
ration really  to  the  fact:   we  cannot  understand  the 
fact  without  understanding  them.    We  want,  in  mathe- 
matical metaphor,  a  sort  of  integration.     But  if  we 
ask  Mr  Mill  what  a  thing  is,  we  shall  get,  I  think,  but 
an  uncertain  answer :  it  is  something  which  is,  or  has 
been,  or  may  be  named:  it  is  an  unknowable  substra- 
tum with  knowable  attributes:  it  is  a  co-existence  of 
attributes,  in  virtue  of  what  nexus  or  principle  we  can- 
not tell.     But  it  is  this,  what  the  universe  is  made  up 
of,  what  is  in  it,  what  makes  things  things,  which  we 
really  want  to  know  before  we  can  properly  appreciate 
what  the  things  do,  their  changes,  what  is  going  on : 
no  doubt  the  study  of  this  latter  helps  us  towards  the 
former:  it  is  its  main  interest:  but  without  the  former, 
so  far  as  we  can  attain  to  that,  it  is  what  can  be  but 
imperfectly  entered  into  and  what  the  mind  will  not 
rest  in. 

It  is  the  same  in  regard  of  man  and  his  history : 
we  ask  what  man  is  and  what  man  should  do,  and  we 
are  answered  with  what  man  has  done  and  does.  Here 
again,  we  can  make  nothing  of  this  latter,  we  cannot 

62 


XX 


INTRODUCTION. 


realize  or  appreciate  it,  except  in  virtue  of  our  know- 
ledge of  the  former.  It  is  the  knowledge  which  we 
have  already  of  the  former  which  gives  interest  to  our 
study  of  the  latter.  No  doubt  when  we  can  rightly  ap- 
preciate and  understand  what  man  has  done  and  does,  it 
will  mightily  add  to  and  deepen  our  knowledge  of  what 
he  is :  still,  as  the  general  fact,  the  basis  of  history  is  the 
more  or  less  knowledge  of  the  nature  of  that  which  it  is 
history  of  But  we,  'men',  are  by  our  thought  and 
feeling  in  a  manner  much  more  intimate  and  real  than 
we  are  as  members  of  the  human  race  on  earth,  in  such 
a  manner  that  history  can  take  account  of  us.  And 
therefore  the  consideration  of  what  we  are  by  our 
thought  and  feeling,  which  is  what  I  call  *  philosophy ', 
is  something  which  no  history  of  any  kind  can  make 
up  for  the  want  of  or  supply  to  us,  and  something  with- 
out which  that  history  itself  loses  very  much  of  its  im- 
portance and  its  interest. 

But  I  now  proceed  to  describe  the  method — so  far 
as  there  is  any  method — upon  which  the  following 
pages  go. 

The  first  three  chapters  contain  a  sketch  of  my  own 
view  as  to  the  double  manner  of  proceeding  necessary 
in  mental  philosophy  or  the  discussion  of  the  nature  of 
knowledge. 

I  then  proceed  to  review,  if  it  may  be  called  so, 
various  books  on  the  subject  and  on  cognate  subjects : 
more  correctly  however,  to  compare  my  views  with  the 
views  of  the  authors  of  the  books  which  I  speak  of 
To  some  extent  I  give  an  account  of  the  purpose  and 
manner  of  proceeding  of  the  books,  not  however  to  a 
very  great  extent. 

I  will  first  mention  what  books  I  notice,  and  then  say 
why  I  notice  any  books,  and  why  these  in  particular. 


INTRODUCTION. 


xxi 


The  first  which  I  speak  of  is  Professor  Ferrier's 
Institutes  of  Metaphysic.  The  second,  Sir  William 
Hamilton's  Lectures  on  Metaphysics.  The  third,  Mr 
Mill's  Logic.  The  fourth,  Dr  Whewell's  series  of 
works,  representing  his  former  '  Philosophy  of  the  In- 
ductive Sciences'.  The  fifth  and  sixth,  which  however 
I  fear  will  not  occur  to  be  noticed,  or  at  least  but  very 
slightly,  in  what  I  publish  now — I  will  give  the  reasons 
at  the  close  of  this  Introduction — are  Mr  Morell's  Ele- 
ments of  Psychology  and  Mr  Herbert  Spencer's  Prin- 
ciples of  Psychology.  The  last  is  Professor  Bain's  book 
upon  the  Senses  and  the  Intellect,  with  possible  refer- 
ence to  his  later  book  upon  the  Emotions  and  the  Will. 

First  then,  why  do  I  notice  any^books  at  all? 

The  disposition  to  comment  is  one  with  which,  ex- 
cept in  certain  particular  cases,  I  do  not  sympathize  at 
all,  and  the  disposition  to  criticise  is  not  one  with  which 
I  sympathize  greatly.  This  latter  is  a  disposition  which 
in  an  age  like  ours  flourishes  much :  I  am  disposed  to 
think  that  the  degree  to  which  it  does  so  is  due  in 
some  degree  rather  to  readers  than  to  writers  :  I  think 
that  what  we  may  call  first-hand  thought  in  philosophy 
is  more  ready  to  spring  up  and  appear  than  it  is  valued, 
at  first,  when  it  does  appear,  and  that  the  manner 
in  which  the  public  ear,  at  any  time,  is  open  only  to  a 
few  or  to  something  said  about  them  has  a  tendency  to 
make  thought  more  parasitic  (so  to  call  it)  than  of  itself 
it  would  naturally  be.  This  however  is  by  the  way. 
But  I  have  to  explain  how  it  is  that,  if  not  fond  of  the 
spirit  of  criticism,  I  apparently  so  much  criticise. 

Philosophy  has  been  from  the  first  SiaXeKTiKtj,  dis- 
cussion, argument — even  when  delivered  in  a  gnomic 
and  authoritative,  or  iij  a  poetical  form,  it  must  rest,  in 
the  mind  of  the  philosopher,  upon  this  imagined — and 


; 


xxu 


INTRODUCTION. 


it  never  can  be  otherwise.  Lord  Bacon,  by  most  vi- 
gorous controversy  and  criticism,  we  may  say,  on  his 
own  part,  endeavoured  to  call  men  away  from  contro- 
verting each  other  to  the  study  of  the  book  of  nature 
open  before  them :  but  in  mental  or  intellectual  philo- 
sophy, not  only  must  we  have  the  vigorous  controversy 
at  the  beginning,  but  even  in  the  carrying  out  of  the 
philosophy  we  cannot  get  free  from  it.  The  reason  is 
this :  the  important  thing  in  intellectual  philosophy  is 
to  be  sure  that  we  are  saying  something.  As  soon  as  a 
philosopher  has  in  any  way  made  an  impression,  he 
will  very  likely  have  some,  it  may  be  many,  to  admire 
and  adopt  what  he  says  :  but  these  are  very  imperfect 
judges  as  to  its  substantialness.  The  test  of  what  he 
says  being  not  only  words,  but  something,  is  first  his 
own  inward  sight :  but  this  is  something  for  himself 
alone,  and  even  he  cannot  entirely  trust  it :  we  cannot 
allow  that  an  idea  is,  by  mere  virtue  of  its  clearness, 
certain  and  true.  Hence  mind  must  be  brought  into 
contact  with  mind — no  man  can  know  even  his  own 
mind  without  this.  And  thus  the  conversational  and 
discussional  form  of  much  early  philosophy  is  not  an 
artistic  accident  of  it,  but  belongs  to  its  being :  the 
philosopher  is  the  man  who  can  ^ihovai  and  SexeaOai  Xoyov 
— who  uses  efibrt  to  think  clearly  himself  and  give  a 
clear  account  of  what  he  thinks,  and  who  besides  thinks 
it  worth  while  to  be  patient  in  trying  to  enter  into  the 
views  of  others.  Intelligent  philosophic  criticism  is 
really  what  I  may  call  substantial,  though  not  literary 
and  artistic,  philosophic  dialogue :  it  is  the  meeting  of 
mind  with  mind  where  truth  is  supposed  to  be  the 
object  of  both,  and  where  truth  is  of  such  a  nature  that 
discussion  is  likely  not  to  confuse,  but  to  clear  it. 

It  is  in  this  spirit  that  I  have  noticed  the  books 


INTRODUCTION. 


XXlll 


which  I  have  noticed — not  with  the  slightest  idea  of 
appraising  their  literary  value,  or  judging  them  from  a 
superior  point  of  view.  So  far  from  this  being  so,  I 
might  mention  among  the  reasons  why  I  have  chosen 
these  books  out  of  the  books  on  the  subject,  this,  that 
these,  it  so  happens,  are  the  books  from  which  I  have 
learnt.  When  I  say  ^learnt',  I  mean  that  they  are 
books  with  which  my  thought  on  these  subjects  has 
been  a  good  deal  associated,  and  which  has  suggested 
much  of  it :  not  at  all  that  they  are  books  which  I 
particularly  follow,  in  which  case  such  heterogeneous 
teaching  must  produce  rather  singular  results.  But  it 
is  my  nature  at  least  to  learn  as  much  from  what  I 
differ  with  as  from  what  I  agree  with.  The  philosophi- 
cal thought  is  always  best  which  is  generated  in  the 
piind,  and  sometimes  the  thought  which  is  caused  by 
opposition  is  likely  to  be  the  more  native,  sometimes 
that  caused  by  acquiescence ;  not  of  course  mere  acqui- 
escence, but  such  as  is  intelligent  and  suggestive.  .  As 
to  this,  the  case  is  different  with  different  individuals. 

It  will  be  seen  in  my  notices  of  the  books,  that  I^ 
never  criticise  any  views  of  the  writers  without  giving 
in  the  fullest  manner  my  own,  in  fact  not  unfrequently 
naaking  their  views  only  a  suggestive  of  what  I  say 
myself,  I  mention  this,  lest  it  should  appear  that  what 
I  have  called  criticism  was  my  object,  which  it  is  not. 
I  care  not  the  least  to  dispute  what  any  one  says,  ex- 
cept with  a  view  of  clearing  my  own  thoughts  and  those 
gf  others.  I  have  noticed  what  seem  to  me  various 
bad  arguments,  but  I  dare  say  I  have  used  some  my- 
self:  every  philosopher  ought  to  make  up  his  mind, 
that  if  be  does  serve  the  cause  of  truth,  one  way  in 
which  he  will  do  so  will  be  by  his  error  being  the  cause 
of  tf  uth  in  others.    I  have  se^n  g^ready  so  much  reason. 


i\ 


"  i 


XXIV 


INTRODUCTION. 


in  anything  which  I  have  thought  about  these  subjects, 
to  correct  previous  thought  by  later,  that  though, 
without  a  reasonable  feeling  that  what  I  write  now  is 
the  truth,  so  far  as  I  can  see  it,  I  should  not  write  at 
all — yet  still,  when  the  process  of  self-correction  and 
growth  of  thought  ceases,  I  shall  consider  the  cessation 
a  mental  senescence  which  I  shall  be  sorry,  not  glad,  to 
feel  in  myself:  and  of  course,  what  one  would  correct 
for  one's  self,  one  must  not  be  indignant  at  having  cor- 
V  rected  by  others. 

But  in  one  respect  the  notice  which  I  have  taken 
of  the  books  which  I  mention  may  be  considered  cri- 
ticism— that  it  is  taken  with  an  earnest  desire  to  help 
the  understanding  and  the  study  of  the  books:  if  I 
had  not  thought  them  eminently  worthy  to  be  under- 
stood and  studied,  I  should  have  been  as  little  disposed 
to  give  so  much  time  to  them  myself  as  to  take  up  the 
time  of  readers  with  thought  about  them.  There  is  no 
doubt  in  England  at  present  a  want  of  philosophy — 
that  this  is  not  a  character  of  our  minds  as  English- 
men, I  think  the  literary  history  of  England  at  other 
times  proves:  but  at  this  time  it  seems  to  me  that 
the  want  is  rather  of  general  philosophic  interest  than, 
so  to  call  it,  of  philosophic  leading,  or  of  minds  dis- 
posed to  philosophic  speculation,  or  of  philosophic 
writers.  So  far  as  my  own  observation  goes,  there 
seems  to  be  commencement  of  germination  of  the  phi- 
losophic seed,  and  there  seem  to  be  good  philosophical 
books,  which,  from  the  nature  of  them,  can  never  in 
any  age  be  numerous :  but  for  what  reason  I  know  not, 
the  seed  seems  scarcely  to  go  on  from  germination  to 
fruit,  and  the  philosophical  books  are  more  admired 
than  entered  into :  what  I  have  called  want  of  philo- 
sophic interest  seems  to  me  deserving  possibly  of  a 


I 


■  \' 


/ 


INTRODUCTION. 


XXV 


harder  name:  but  there  have  been  certainly  periods, 
and  those  possibly  periods  when  men's  thoughts  were 
much  taken  up  with  civil  and  political  excitements,  in 
which  men  nevertheless  found  time  to  think  with  in- 
terest of  philosophic  problems  to  which  now  they  are 
quite  indifferent,  and  to  find  pleasure  in  eflFort  of  mind 
about  things  worth  it,  where  now  it  seems  to  them  only 
waste  of  force. 

What  however  I  have  mentioned  this  for,  is,  that 
it  does  not  seem  to  me  that  there  is  want  of  good 
books  of  our  day  on  philosophy,  and  I  have  chosen  for 
criticism  such  books  as  I  have  with  the  notion  that  the 
philosophic  problems  which  they  treat  of  are  treated 
of  by  them  with  an  ability  which  leaves  no  reason  that 
we  should  go  for  the  discussion  of  them  beyond  our 
own  time  and  country.  I  give  this  of  course  as  a 
partial  reason  only  for  my  having  selected  such  books. 
T  leave  the  philosophy  of  other  countries  and  the  an- 
cient fountains  of  all  our  philosophy  to  others  more  com- 
petent and  more  acquainted  with  them  than  I :  but  I 
do  say,  and  that  though  I  fear  that  those  whom  I 
speak  of  would  each  one,  were  they  all  alive  to  do  so, 
only  in  a  very  limited  degree  concur  with  me — that 
the  books  which  I  speak  of — and  more  might  be  added 
to  the  list,  for  as  I  have  said  and  shall  say  more  fully, 
my  selection  of  these  is  in  part  accidental — form  as 
good  a  philosophic  literature  for  one  period  as  we  shall 
find  at  many  periods  which  we  much  more  distinctly 
should  call  philosophical.  It  is  not  to  fill  any  void,  or 
make  good  any  deficiency  that  I  write,  according  to 
what  prefaces  usually  say :  it  is  to  help  readers  to  un- 
derstand and  use  what  they  have  got:  but  then  by 
understanding  and  using  a  philosophical  book  I  do  not 
mean  simply  taking  in  what  it  says,  and  thinking,  so 


i 

i 


M 


_ti^ 


XXVI 


INTRODUCTION. 


far  as  this  is  thinking,  accordingly:  I  mean  studying 
it,  entering  into  the  view,  following  the  arguments 
(and  watching  them  also)  seeing  the  difficulties  and 
seeing  whether  they  are  met — and  much  besides  of 
this  kind.  It  will  be  said,  There  cannot  be  many 
readers  like  this:  perhaps  not.  What  is  really  the 
truth  as  to  the  philosophy  of  different  periods  and 
generations,  we  really  cannot  tell :  we  should  perhaps 
consider  Bishop  Butler's  generation  a  philosophical  one 
in  comparison  with  ours:  but  as  to  the  readers,  his 
impatience  at  their  supposed  sluggishness  of  thought 
is  almost  amusing :  and  as  to  the  writers,  it  does  not 
seem  to  me  that  we  are  at  all  inferior. 

I  will  now  mention  why  I  have  selected  for  notice 
the  particular  books  which  are  selected.  Some  of  the 
reasons  have  been  anticipated,  but  there  are  others  \ 

The  books  form,  it  will  be  readily  observed,  a  sort 
of  scale,  spectrum,  or  gamut,  of  which  Professor 
Ferrier  represents  the  extreme  philosophical  end,  and 
Professor  Bain  the  extreme  physiological  or  physical. 
Towards  the  centre  of  the  scale,  as  is  natural,  there  is 
not  much  principle  of  succession.     I  have  put  Mr  Mill 

1  I  take  the  books  as  representative— as  exhibiting,  more  or  less,  parti- 
cular schools  of  thought  I  am  not  quite  certain  of  the  extent  to  which 
they  are  so,  and  perhaps,  in  what  I  hope  may  follow  these  pages  at  a  later 
time,  shall  remark  upon  this.  Supposing  this  however  to  be  so,  it  is  evi- 
dent that  in  each  school  of  thought  there  are  books  to  which  I  make  no 
reference,  in  regard  of  which  I  have  not  the  least  wish  to  pronoimce  that 
those  which  I  notice  are  superior  to  them.  No  one  for  instance  could  think 
that  I  should  undervalue  what  has  been  written  on  these  subjects  by 
Professor  Mansel— but  I  have  considered  that  what  needed  saying  on  his 
manner  of  thought  would  be  said  sufficiently  for  my  purpose  m  speaking  of 
Sir  William  Hamilton— and  the  same  as  to  Professor  Fraser.  It  so  happens 
that  of  those  whom  I  notice  some  are  alive  f^nd  some  are  dead— it  cannot 
therefore  be  said  that  I  care  to  Criticise  only  those  who  can  feel  the  criticism, 
or  only  those  who  cannot  answer.  And  Sir  William  Hamilton  still  lives — 
a  philosopher's  best  life — ^in  disciples. 


INTRODUCTION. 


XXVII 


nearer  the  philosophical  end  of  the  scale,  and  Dr  Whe- 
well  nearer  the  other  for  reasons  which  further  on  I 
have  mentioned,  and  which  refer  to  the  method  of  each: 
that  of  Mr  Mill  being  derived  in  some  degree  from 
the  Formal  Logic,  and  having  rather  a  logical  and 
scholastic  character  throughout:  that  of  Dr  Whewell 
resting  very  much  upon  physics  and  physical  history, 
with  much'  less  use  of  logical  manner  and  language. 
If  I  had  looked  at  the  substance  more  than  at  the 
method  the  arrangement  might  possibly  have  been 
different,  Dr  "Whewell  joining  with  his  definite  physics 
much  more  of  what  I  call  the  philosophical  view. 

Of  these  books,  those  at  the  extremes  will  be  found 
probably  the  most  suggestive  of  any  thought  which 
these  pages  contain,  so  far  as  any  of  them  have  sug- 
gested it,  though  those  in  the  middle  (I  may  mention 
especially  that  of  Dr  Whewell)  on  account  of  the  wider 
range  of  view,  may  be  those  in  which  I  have  taken 
the  more  interest,  and  may  perhaps  think  the  more 
instructive.  But  there  is  much  less,  in  the  books  at 
the  extremes,  of  that  confusion  of  thought,  as  it  seems 
to  me,  which  one  purpose  of  the  following  pages  is  to 
call  attention  to.  And  also— what  may  excite  some 
surprise,  but  I  think  it  strongly — I  think  that  the 
books  at  each  extreme,  so  far  as  they  do  touch  any 
matter  belonging  to  the  opposite  extreme,  are  likely, 
from  their  less  confusion  of  view,  to  suggest  truer 
thoughts  about  it  than  perhaps  the  others  would.  This 
is  the  same  thing  as  what  I  have  meant  when  I  have 
said  that  though  philosophy  on  the  one  side,  and  phy- 
siology and  physical  science  on  the  other,  are  very 
different  things  and  may  perhaps  require  different 
minds  for  the  developement  of  them,  yet  they  are  not 
hostile  to  each  other,  and  in  reality  the  better  and  purer 


xxvm 


INTRODUCTION. 


the  one  is  in  its  way,  the  better  and  purer  the  other  is 
likely  to  be.  The  mixture  of  considerations  how  we 
know  with  the  study  of  what  we  know,  the  supposition 
that  we  not  only  perhaps  do  not,  but  cannot,  know 
reaUty,  that  we  do  not  know  existence,  but  only  modes 
and  modifications  of  it,  that  our  knowledge  makes 
some  sort  of  alteration  in  the  thing  that  we  know — 
and  other  similar  suppositions,  which  belong  to  the 
sort  of  philosophy  which  I  have  called  ^  notionalism' — 
all  these  sorts  of  things  seem  to  me  not  only  to  he  bad 
philosophy,  but  so  far  as  they  are  attended  to,  to 
make  bad  physics.  While  on  the  other  hand,  in  stu- 
dying how  we  have  learnt,  or  come  to  the  knowledge 
of  what  we  know,  the  refusal  to  look  at  human  mental 
activity,  at  the  'how  we  know',  as  well  as  at  the  fact 
that  there  are  things  which  we  know  and  that  we 
know  them,  is  as  destructive  of  any  philosophy  or 
true  logic  of  advancing  thought  as  the  other  is  of 
physics. 

But  I  must  not  anticipate,  or  give  what  will  not 
now  be  understood:  I  will  merely,  in  this  Introduc- 
tion, say  a  word  or  two  on  each  of  the  books  in  suc- 
cession. 

I  have  never  known  anything  of  Mr  Ferrier  except 
his  book  which  I  notice,  but  I  judge  that  his  premature 
death  has  been  as  great  a  loss  to  the  philosophy  of  our 
country  as  it  could  suffer.  His  book  seems  to  me  to 
be  eminently  suggestive,  perhaps  the  more  so  on  ac- 
count of  much  in  it  which  I  shall  notice  as  to  me  very 
unsatisfactory:  it  suggests  more  strongly  than  any 
book  which  I  happen  to  know  that  which  appears  to 
me  the  great  need  of  our  philosophy  at  the  present 
time,  namely,  a  reconsideration  of  our  Philosophy  of 
the  Human  Mind,  on  which  we  have  so  many  books 


INTRODUCTION. 


XXIX 


of  so  much  value,  as  to  its  principle  and  as  to  the 
legitimacy  of  its  method:  and  it  takes  a  genuinely 
philosophical  point  of  view  from  which  it  seems  to 
me  thought  has  with  us  got  too  much  turned  aside. 

In  what  follows,  I  have  said  so  much  upon  Sir 
William  Hamilton's  Lectures  that  I  will  say  little  of 
them  here.  I  have  had  occasion  to  criticise  Sir  Wil- 
liam Hamilton  rather  strongly :  but,  recurring  to  what 
I  said  a  short  time  since  about  all  the  books,  I  think 
we  shall  have  to  go  a  long  way  back  in  English  philo- 
sophic history  (if  indeed  we  are  successful  then)  before 
we  find  philosophic  power  of  a  certain  kind  united  with 
learning  and  philosophic  knowledge  as  they  are  in 
him.  I  say  'of  a  certain  kind'  because — non  omnia 
possumus  omnes — I  have  had  to  criticise  bis  reasoning, 
and  altogether  I  desiderate  something  which  a  philo- 
sopher needs  as  much  as  learning,  though  perhaps,  if 
he  has  Sir  William  Hamilton's  learning,  it  may  be 
difiicult  for  him  to  have  it — something  which  may  be 
called  flexibility,  life,  growingness  of  thought :  but  when 
we  owe  much  to  a  great  man  it  is  idle  to  blame  him 
for  not  being  everything  which  one  could  have  wished, 
and  though  I  do  not  think  Sir  William  Hamilton's 
philosophy  promises  much  for  progress  in  the  future, 
I  have  but  little  doubt  that  his  books,  for  one  purpose 
or  another,  will  long  be  read  and  referred  to. 

To  Mr  Mill  I  have  already  slightly  referred. 
There  are  several  things  which  he  has  published,  and 
republished,  in  regard  of  which  I  disagree  with  him 
far  more  strongly  and  deeply  than  I  do  probably  with 
any  of  the  other  writers  here  noticed :  but  they  do  not 
at  all  come  into  consideration  here,  and  it  is,  amongst 
other  things,  to  avoid  anything  of  the  kind  doing  so, 
that  I  put  together  what  there  is  here  upon  matters 


XXX 


INTRODUCTION. 


of  intellectual  philosophy  alone,  just  indicating,  in 
speaking  of  Mr  Mill,  where  we  pass  on  to  morals,  with- 
out at  all  following  that  road. 

Since  the  following  pages  have  been  in  course  of 
printing,  I, have  become  aware  of  a  book  which  Mr  Mill 
is  pubUshing,  or  has  published,  on  the  subject  of  his 
philosophical  differences   with  Sir  William  Hamilton. 
I  speak  in  this  doubtful  manner  only  because  I  have 
purposely  avoided  learning  further.     Perhaps  this  will 
be  understood.     To  have  waited,  and  referred  to  what 
Mr  Mill  may  thus  say,  would  have  involved  a  wider 
controversy.     If  criticism  of  Mr  Mill  had  been  in  any 
degree  my  main  purpose,  I  should  have  been  bound 
to  do  this:  but,  as  I  have  said,   I  have   only  used 
Mr  Mill's  published  views  (and  so  for  the  other  books 
which  I  have  noticed)  to  compare  my  own  with:    I 
have  said  as  little  as  may  be  of  approving  and   dis- 
approving, and  spoken  only  of  agreement  and  disagree- 
ment :    let  us  suppose   Mr  Mill,   as  he  has  written 
hitherto,  to  be  A,  a  character  in  rather  a  lengthened 
philosophical   discussion,    and  if  the  actual   Mr  Mill 
has  changed  his  views,  or,  which  is  exceedingly  likely, 
I  have  misunderstood  him,  then  let  it  not  be  supposed 
that  it  is  Mr  Mill  that  I  am  discussing  with  at  all.    For 
myself,   I  am  curious  to   see,  when  these  pages  are 
published,  what  Mr  Mill  may  have  said  on  any  subject 
of  which  I  may  have  spoken,   and  I  think  that  such 
involuntary  controversy  may  possibly  not  be  the  worst 
form  of  it.    And  after  all,  since  what  I  have  said  about 
Mr  Mill  and  Sir  William  Hamilton  in  conjunction  is 
not  much,  it  is  possible  that  what  Mr  Mill  says  of  the 
philosophy  of  the  latter  may  not  refer  to  it,  and  may 
concern  some  other  subject,  as,  for  instance,  the  Philo- 
sophy of  the  Unconditioned. 


INTRODUCTION. 


XXXI 


7 


With  Dr  Whewell,  my  predecessor  in  the  chair 
which  I  occupy,  and  to  whom  all  those  interested  in 
Mental  and  Moral  Philosophy  in  the  University  must 
feel  themselves  much  indebted,  I  have  long  had  the 
advantage  of  friendly  intercourse.  He  has  set  an  ex- 
ample in  the  University  (not  followed,  I  am  ashamed 
to  say  for  myself  at  least,  as  diligently  as  it  might  have 
been)  of  energetic  and  large-minded  cultivation  of  the 
subjects  to  which  these  pages  relate,  which  I  should  be 
sorry  not  to  acknowledge.  On  his  books  however  I 
think  there  is  nothing  which  I  need  say  in  this  Intro- 
duction. 

Of  the  remaining  writers  whom  I  have  mentioned, 
Mr  Bain  is  the  only  one  whom  I  know  otherwise  than 
by  his  books.  It  had  been  my  wish  to  make  the  follow- 
ing pages  complete  as  regards  these  writers:  but  cir- 
cumstances have  supervened  which  have  determined 
me  to  stop  at  present,  in  general,  with  what  I  have  said 
about  Dr  Whewell,  in  the  hope  that  in  a  month  or 
two,  the  rest  may  follow.  I  have  wished,  for  various 
reasons,  to  bring  this  book  out  within  the  present 
month :  one  reason  being,  that  ill  health  has  prevented 
my  doing  as  much  in  the  v/ay  of  my  Professorship 
during  the  past  academical  year  i\s  1  could  have  wished, 
and  I  wish  to  do  what  I  can.  The  preparing  for  the 
press  what  I  here  publish  (concurring  with  other  em- 
ployments),  has  taken  longer  than  I  had  anticipated: 
and  therefore,  though  much  of  what  I  hope  to  say 
a  month  or  two  hence  wants  but  little  of  completion,  I 
have  thought  it  best  for  the  present  to  stop  where  I 
have. 

After  all  I  have  called  the  following  pages  'rough 
notes '  with  a  real  feeling  how  much  the  title  expresses 
the  incoherence  of  them,  an  incoherence  which  I  partly 


xxxu 


INTRODUCTION. 


V  ! 


\ 


regret  and  apologize  for,  and  which  I  partly  think  is 
not  altogether  a  disadvantage. 

Reading  and  speculating,  and  even  to  a  certain  ex- 
tent writing,  on  the  subjects  which  the  following  pages 
concern  is  something  which  is  so  much  a  pleasure  to 
me,  whereas  preparing  for  the  press  and  publication  is 
so  exceedingly  otherwise,  that  the  hesitation  and  irreso- 
lution which  I  have  hitherto  felt  have  a  strong  tendency 
to  continue.  But  I  have  arrived  at  an  age  at  which  a 
man  begins  to  feel,  that  if  he  thinks  he  has  anything  to 
say,  he  must  say  it,  without  being  too  particular  how : 
if  it  shall  please  God  to  give  the  opportunity,  it  is  pos- 
sible that  some  things  said  here  confusedly  may  here- 
after be  put  in  a  clearer  form,  but  in  the  interim,  as 
time  is  passing,  it  is  possible  that  some  things  which  I 
say  may  suggest  thought  in  others,  and  what  I  see  but 
indistinctly  may  be  seen  by  them  more  clearly,  and  put 
in  a  better  and  truer  light.  For  the  best  thing  that  I 
can  hope,  and  the  thing  which  I  most  wish,  for  any- 
thing which  I  may  say,  is  that  it  may  be  improved 
upon  :  the  present  generation  seem  to  have  more  than 
one  most  bright  field  of  speculation  open  before  them, 
and  what  I  want  more  than  anything  is  to  prevent 
their  enterprize  being  damped  by  their  being  told, 
whether  on  the  ground  of  notionaUsm  or  positivism, 
that  to  know  about  God,  to  form  a  notion  of  an  ideal 
of  what  should  be  done  or  what  they  and  the  human 
race  should  aim  at  —  that  this  and  much  like  it  is 
visionary  and  beyond  the  reach  of  human  faculties : 
nor  do  I  less  wish  to  prevent  the  truth  of  their  look  at 
nature,  and  the  sincerity  of  their  investigation  of  it, 
being  vitiated  by  the  suspicion  and  fear  that  they  will 
be  brought  to  conclusions  inconsistent  with  all  this,  and 
which  will  force  them  to  renounce  their  best  birthright. 


INTRODUCTION. 


XXXIU 


I  am  not  however  altogether  of  opinion  that  such 
incoherence  as  there  is  in  these  pages  is  a  disadvan- 
tage. For  the  reputation  of  the  philosophical  writer 
himself,  it  is  best  that  what  he  has  to  say  should  appear 
well  and  artistically  rounded :  but  I  am  not  sure  it  is 
best  for  his  readers,  if  what  they  want  is  to  know  the 
truth.  A  large  part  of  the  following  pages  represent 
the  first  jet  in  which  such  philosophy  as  is  contained  in 
them  has  cast  itself  in  my  mind,  after  a  doubtfulness 
and  effort  in  which  it  seemed  doubtful  whether  it  would 
cast  itself  in  any :  I  am  not  sure  whether,  for  the  real 
appreciation  of  that  which  I  say,  which  is  what  I  want, 
it  is  not  better  it  should  be  left  in  this  state  rather  than 
more  carefully  elaborated.  But  I  know  that  my  view 
in  the  course  of  the  writing,  while  in  the  main  more 
thoroughly  commending  itself,  has  in  some  particulars 
changed — I  think  cleared  itself :  I  am  aware  therefore 
of  weak  and  confused  places,  or  what  seem  to  me  so  : 
while  I  am  also  aware  that  most  probably,  many  places 
which  do  not  seem  to  me  so  are  so,  just  as,  possibly,  the 
others  are  not, 

I  think  I  have  said  nearly  all  that  seemed  required 
to  be  said  in  this  Introduction :  there  is  one  thing  which 
is  not  required  to  be  said,  but  which  I  should  like  to 

say. 

I  mentioned  that  one  reason  for  which  I  noticed 
the  particular  books  which  I  do  notice  was  that  they 
were  books  from  which  I  had  learnt:  I  do  not  of 
course  mean  the  only  books,  because,  though  on  these 
subjects  I  have  not  cared  to  read  more  than  my  mind 
could  test,  examine  and  enter  into,  yet  I  have  taken 
pleasure,  so  far  as  I  could,  in  gaining  my  knowledge 
about  them  from  various  sources,  and  have  endeavoured 
mentally  to  harmonize  the  knowledge  as  I  best  might. 


i 


XXXIV 


li^TRODUCTION. 


ft 


Whatever  in  these  pages  is  right,  and  seems  to  have 
been  said  by  others,  I  beg  may  be  referred  to  them,  for 
whether  I  am  aware  of  it  or  not,  it  may  very  likely 
have  come  from  them,  and  if  I  have  not  taken  it  from 
them,  I  have  missed  reading  something  which  I  very 
likely  should  be  the  better  for  having  read.  But  I  speak 
here  about  what  I  have  learnt  for  the  following  reason. 
I  have  great  interest  in  philosophy  and  speculation, 
no  dislike  to  argument  and  discussion,  and  very  much 
pleasure  in  imaginative  suppositions,  sometimes  perhaps 
of  what  may  seem  a  wild  kind — holding  as  I  do  most 
strongly,  that  there  is  no  fruitftil  reasoning  where  thei'e 
has  not  been  much  activity  of  imagination  preceding. 
But  everything  of  this  kind  seems  to  me  circumstance 
or  accident  about  philosophy,  in  comparison  with  the 
one  essential  consideration  in  regard  of  it,  What  is  the 
truth  ?  It  seems  trivial  to  say  this— I  shall  be  answer- 
ed, Who  says  otherwise  ?  But  when  one  listens,  and 
reads,  one  seems  to  find  philosophical  questions  put 
really  upon  all  sorts  of  other  grounds  :  one  finds  a  care- 
lessness in  the  examination  of  argument  which  seems  to 
show  very  little  value  for  what  it  professes  to  make  out : 
one  seems  to  find,  that  mental  and  moral  questions  are 
scarcely  considered  worth  patience  and  thought,  while 
so  much  is  given  to  others,  interesting  indeed,  but 
surely  of  less  importance — and  if  so,  how  can  it  be  said 
the  truth  about  them  is  valued  ?  One  seems  to  find, 
that  things  are  talked  and  written  about  with  sincerity 
no  doubt,  but  with  little  iappearance  of  what  I  will  call 
mental  conscientiousness  on  the  part  of  the  talkers  or 
writers,  that  is,  with  little  care  or  effort  to  get,  so  far  as 
they  can,  to  the  bottom  of  them,  to  ^e  what  they  talk 
or  write  about— atid  if  so,  can  we  say  thut  truth  is  really 
valued  ? 


INTRODUCTION. 


XXXV 


Myself,  not  owing  much  I  think  to  any  philosophi- 
cal teaching,  (a  thing  which  I  do  not  think  altogether 
to  have  been  an  advantage),  I  owe  almost  all  such  in- 
terest as  I  take  in  philosophy  to  what  is  next  best  to 
teaching,  if  it  is  not  better,  to  companionship  :  the  com- 
panionship of  one  who  did  not  leave  much  behind  him 
himself,  except  a  memory  with  others  I  think  as  well 
as  me  not  likely  soon  to  be  obliterated,  the  late  Robert 
Leslie  EUis.  .  My  companionship  with  him  I  think  was 
intellectually  the  most  valuable  portion  of  my  life,  for 
one  single  reason,  namely,  that  I  learnt  from  it  (I  say 
from  it  rather  than  from  him,  for  I  think  it  was  from 
the  concurrence  and  conflict  of  our  minds,  which  were 
very  different)  a  something  not  easy  to  describe,  but 
which  has  been  the  soul  of  all  my  notions  about  philo- 
sophy since :  one  might  call  it  a  belief  in  thought :  a 
feeling  that  things  were  worth  thinking  about,  that 
thought  was  worth  effort,  that  half-thought  or  loose 
thought  was  something  to  be  despised,  that  the  getting 
to  the  bottom  of  a  thing  was  what  would  repay  the 
trouble  of  it :  a  sort  of  shame  at  not  beinor.  serious  and 

o 

in  earnest  about  matters  worth  seriousness :  without 
indeed  too  great  a  readiness  to  think  things  this  latter. 
It  is  perhaps  a  part  of  my  disposition  rather  than  of 
his,  that,  in  too  great  a  measure,  probably,  many  of  the 
things  which  seem  to  people  in  general  worth  trouble 
and  thought  do  not  seem  to  me  so  :  that  this  feeling  is 
not  still  stronger  in  me  I  certainly  owe  in  part  to  my  com- 
panionship with  him.  But  in  a  time  of  civilization  like 
ours,  when  things  are  talked  about,  and  written  about, 
and  read  about,  so  easily  and  with  so  little  expenditure 
of  attention,  one  might  be  tempted  to  think  that  our 
intelligence  was  really  given  us  only  as  a  means  to- 
wards material  utility  or  as  a  something  to  amuse  our- 


\ 


c2 


XXXVl 


INTRODUCTION. 


selves  and  others  with.  Without  bringing  intellect  into 
any  comparison  with  moral  feeling  and  duty,  my  own 
feeling  seems  to  me  to  be  ever  stronger  and  stronger, 
that  as  rational  beings,  at  once  our  great  duty  and  our 
highest  pleasure  is  something  which  people  do  not 
in  general  seem  to  trouble  themselves  much  about, 
whether  in  life  or  for  education  :  the  seeing  things  for 
ourselves  and  having  an  opinion  of  our  own,  with  care 
and  any  amount  of  effort  that  it  should  be,  to  the  ut- 
most of  our  power,  the  true  and  the  right  one  :  a  faith 
in  our  intelligence,  or,  which  seems  to  me  the  same 
thing,  a  faith  in  the  entire  state  of  things  in  which  God 
has  placed  us,  and  in  the  moral  universe  of  which  we 
are  a  part,  that  our  intelligence,  rightly  used,  will  not 
lead  us  astray,  and  that  the  right  use  of  it  is  something 
\  which  is  well  worth  our  while. 

Robert  Leslie  Ellis,  it  is  probable,  as  is  the  case 
with  men  of  abundance  of  character  and  richness  of 
endowment,  seemed  different  to  different  people,  ac- 
cording to  what  they  most  sympathized  with,  but  to 
me  what  was  most  interesting  about  him  was  his  in- 
tellectual conscientiousness :  which  was  marked  by  the 
distinctness  and  clearness  with  which,  when  he  ex- 
pressed an  opinion,  it  always  was  expressed,  and  not 
less  by  the  readiness  to  listen  to  anything  which  might 
appear  to  throw  diflSculty  or  doubt  in  the  way  of  any- 
thing which  he  might  be  disposed  to  think.  It  is  the 
going  of  these  two  things  together  which  makes  the 
philosophic  readiness  to  meet  the  mind  of  others  fairly 
with  one's  own  mind,  the  mingled  candour  and  desire  of 
truth  which  I  have  spoken  of :  there  are  abundance  of 
people  with  well  rounded  and  neatly  expressed  opinions, 
but  they  can  bear  no  disturbance  of  them  :  there  are 
abundance  who  are  ready  to  admit  doubts  and  difficulties, 


INTRODUCTION. 


xxxvu 


. 


so  ready  that  they  think  it  hopeless  to  form  any  opinion 
at  all.  I  understand  by  intellectual  conscientiousness 
the  feeling  of  restlessness  and  dissatisfaction  at  any- 
thing being  confusedly  seen  or  not  worked  out,  and  of 
dislike  at  seeing  it  incorrectly  put  or  fallaciously  argued, 
which  arises  from  the  feeling  that  truth  is  worth  effort 
and  patience :  this  is  likely  to  be  encouraged  by  a 
mathematical  training,  or  to  exist  in  concert  with  a 
mathematical  habit  of  mind,  provided  (a  most  im- 
portant provision)  there  exists  also  what  I  should  call 
a  wideness  of  view,  and  a  feeling  of  the  importance, 
the  higher  importance,  of  other  truth  besides  mathe- 
matical. Otherwise  the  comparison  of  the  directness 
of  mathematical  result  with  the  complication  and  diffi- 
culties of  philosophy  will  only  produce  despair  of  the 
best  truth.  The  philosopher,  as  I  understand,  is  a  man 
who  means  a  great  deal  by  believing — means  something 
very  different  from  the  easy  process  which  many  call  by 
that  name  :  a  man  in  whom  desire  to  believe  and  desire 
to  believe  nothing  that  is  not  the  truth  are  equally 
balanced.  There  is  no  real  intellectual  faith  therefore 
without  much  of  thought,  anxiety,  and  doubt.  The 
philosopher  in  his  search  can  hardly,  I  presume,  avoid 
much  repulse  and  even  defeat.  The  true  philosopher, 
in  my  view,  is  the  man  who  under  all  *  non  desperavit 
de  veritate':  who  believes  in  truth  enough  to  be  willing 
mentally  to  labour  for  it,  and  to  forego  any  substitutes 
for  it. 

To  me  this  character  of  mind  seems  the  reverse  of 
the  sceptical,  and  to  be  that  which  gives  the  proper 
foundation  for  religion :  it  seems  to  me  to  be  from 
minds  of  thi§  conscientiousuess  and  deepfelt  seriousness 
that  we  learn  (and  I  am  sure  it  is  my  own  experience) 
very  much  of  what  gives  religion  its  claim  to  be  the 


MM 


I** 


'\ 


XXXVlll 


INTRODUCTION. 


one  great  thing  which  we  ought  to  think  of.  It  is  true 
that  I  have  views  on  this  subject  which  are  not  per- 
haps those  of  every  one  :  I  look  upon  philosophy  not 
simply  as  a  branch  of  literature  and  science,  but  in  its 
practical  character,  as  intimately  connected  with  human 
action  and  the  direction  of  that,  and  since  religion 
takes  that  province  also,  I  do  not  think  they  can  act 
independently,  or  refuse  to  notice  each  other.  As  a 
man  thinketh  in  his  heart,  so  is  he :  and  to  the  *  thought' 
which  thus  makes  the  man,  I  am  disposed  to  give 
a  wide  application.  It  is  of  course  sadly  familiar 
to  us  how  many  neglect  and  cast  away  their  moral 
selves,  their  soul :  but  I  am  disposed  to  think,  that  as 
regards  their  intellectual  selves,  few  people  value  them- 
selves as  they  might  and  should :  and  that  if  they 
cared  more  what  they  thought,  not  in  view  of  shining 
and  appearing,  but  for  its  own  sake,  they  would  be 
happier  and  better.  Thought  is  not  a  professional 
matter — not  something  for  so-called  philosophers 
only  or  professed  thinkers.  The  best  philosopher 
is  the  man  who  can  think  most  simply.  Education 
and  learning  are  wanted  for  thought  just  in  the  same 
degree  to  which,  on  the  other  hand,  fresh  view  and 
hunger  after  truth  are  wanted :  and  if  the  ignorant 
envies  the  learned,  the  latter  has  some  reason  to  retort 
the  feeling,  and  to  envy  the  other  the  intellectual  ap- 
petite which  he  ought  to  have.  But,  like  the  country- 
men in  Virgil,  the  ignorant  are  insensible  of  their 
advantages.  I  say  this  seriously  so  far,  that  I  think 
if  in  those  who  learn,  the  interest  or  value  of  what 
they  are  doing  as  a  process  of  thought  could  be  to  a 
certain  degree  in  mind,  the  value  of  what  is  done 
would  be  many  times  multiplied  :  how  knowledge  in- 
creases for  us  is  not  a  thing  of  near  so  much  conse- 


<\ 


INTRODUCTION. 


XXXIX 


quence  as  how  thought  changes.  We  want  and  ought 
if  possible  to  use  our  minds  in  thought  all  along :  for 
each  stage  in  the  change  of  thought  has  its  own  special 
value  :  and  it  is  as  we  think  at  each  time,  according  to 
what  I  said  just  now,  that  we  are. 

But  I  must  not  dwell  on  this :  I  would  only  wish 
people  to  consider  that  thought-^and  philosophy  is  no 
more  than  good  and  methodical  thought— is  a  matter  in- 
timate  to  them,  a  portion  of  their  real  selves :  when  they 
think  this,  they  will  be  to  a  certain  extent  good  philo- 
sophers already,  for  they  will  value  what  they  think, 
be  interested  in  it,  and  take  pains  about  it :  there  are 
some  perhaps,  good  but  mistaken,  intercourse  with 
whom  might  lead  them  to  consider  that  what  they 
(such  as  they  are)  think  themselves  is  of  very  little 
consequence,  and  that  they  have  nothing  to  do  but 
to  accept  something  on  authority :  and  there  are  others, 
as  mistaken  but  very  far  from  so  good,  intercourse 
with  whom  might  lead  them  to  consider  in  the  same 
way  that  what  they  think  themselves  is  of  very  little 
consequence :  because  there  is  nothing  worth  thinking 
about :  because  neither  their  thought  nor  that  of  others 
is  what  will  lead  them  to  any  result  worth  speaking 
of:  because  we  think  according  to  our  place  in  the 
scale  of  nature  and  the  history  of  man,  and  according 
to  the  history  of  our  father  and  mother,  and  whatever 
else  may  have  determined  our  physical  organization,  and 
because  elevation  of  our  moral  selves  and  of  our  race  is 
a  chimera,  and  man  is  simply  a  dreamy  and  imagina- 
tive animal,  and  a  grown  man  of  sense  will  quit  such 
imaginations,  and  if  I  may  so  express  it,  let  himself 
be— do  what  he  must  or  will  do— -consider  thought 
for  him  as  what  the  animars  instinct  is  for  it,  his  ca- 
pital or  instrument  for  material  life,  and  the  utmost 


T 


A 


f 


HI 


xl 


INTRODUCTION. 


I" 


thing  worth  thinking  of,  if  he  goes  so  far,  that  he  may 
use  it  for  the  material  benefit  of  others.  Fcenum 
habet  in  comu,  longe  fuge — ultra  Sauromatas,  or  any- 
where further  still — let  us  go  anywhere  to  avoid 
teaching  which  like  this  damps  as  well  mental  specula- 
tion as  moral  energy — damps  all  worthy  enterprize  and 
aspiringness :  teaching  which,  now  occurring  as  an  ap- 
parent result  of  human  progress,  would  have  prevented 
that  progress  if  in  earlier  times  it  had  been,  not  only 
what  it  always  has  more  or  less  been,  the  habit  of  mind 
of  the  less  thinking  among  the  human  race,  but  the 
creed  and  belief  of  the  more  thinking.  Human  pro- 
gress has  been  what  it  is,  under  God's  Providence, 
because  there  have  not  been  wanting  in  the  human 
race  men  who  have  felt  themselves  free,  and  who  have 
believed  in  their  intelligence,  and  who  have  felt  that 
their  race  was  capable  of  elevation,  and  who  have  seen 
or  seemed  to  themselves  to  see,  with  effort  indeed  per- 
haps and  obscurely,  something  of  the  way  in  which  it 
could  be  done.  If  complaint  is  to  be  made  at  present  of 
the  absence  of  philosophical  spirit  in  our  country,  it  ap- 
pears to  me — perhaps  mistakenly — that  many  men  are 
in  a  sort  of  doubt  as  to  what  is  before  them :  that  they 
have  a  kind  of  fear  that  religion  and  the  old  ways  are 
dying  out,  and  yet  are  not  satisfied  with  a  prospect  only 
of  continual  multiplication  of  fresh  inventions  and  new 
markets,  while  they  do  not  know  what  to  look  to  in- 
stead. I  have  but  to  say  on  this,  let  us  believe  in 
ourselves,  which  in  this  application  is  not  the  revolting 
against,  but  the  believing  in  God,  whose  Providence 
has  made  men  to  advance  as  he  has.  If  we  wish,  as 
men,  to  be  wiser,  better,  happier,  let  us  believe  that  to 
some  degree  at  least  we  can  make  ourselves  so,  and  let 
us  try.    The  following  pages  are  a  very  humble  attempt, 


INTRODUCTION. 


xli 


or  beginning  of  an  attempt,  towards  advance  in  the 
intellectual  direction :  if  they  are  at  all  a  successful  at- 
tempt, it  will  be  through  others  taking  up  anything 
which  may  happen  to  be  right  in  them,  and  pursuing 
it :  I  hope  it  may  be  so. 

I  mentioned  a  short  time  since,  that  it  is  in  the 
books  of  the  writers  at  the  two  extremities  of  the  scale 
which  I  have  given,  that  will  be  found  opinions  most 
resembling  those  given  in  the  following  pages :  and  in 
fact,  the  main  thread,  so  to  speak,  of  all  that  follows, 
is  effort  to  ascertain  the  relation  which  the  manner  of 
thought  at  one  of  these  extremes  bears  to  that  at  the 
other.  I  am  not  going  in  what  is  now  published,  for 
reasons  which  I  have  given,  to  speak  of  the  writers 
towards  one  of  the  extremes : .  but  to  show  the  line  of 
thought  which  I  shall  try  to  follow,  I  will  anticipate 
for  a  moment,  and  say  a  word  of  the  one  at  the  ex- 
treme. Professor  Bain. 

Some  of  the  leading  notions  which  I  have  given 
will  be  Cound  given  in  Mr  Bain's  book  more  distinctly 
than  in  any  other,  as  for  instance  in  his  chapter  on  the 
Perception  and  Belief  of  the  Material  World.  For 
example  "  Belief  in  external  reality  is  the  anticipation 
"  of  a  given  effect  to  a  given  antecedent  "../'Between 
**  the  world  and  mind  there  is  no  comparison,  the  things 
"are  not  homogeneous*...." — and  so  in  other  cases. 

But  perhaps  I  had  better  quote  a  passage  at  length, 
which  expresses  more  clearly  than  I  could  express  it, 
in  all  the  first  portion  of  it,  what  I  think  myself,  and 
shows  in  the  second  what  it  is  that  I  want  to  under- 
stand and  what  I  desiderate. 

"When  we  come  to  communicate  with  other  beings,  and 
*'  ascertain  by  the  signs  of  communication  that  they  pass  through 

*  Page  370. 


^^m 


maHMiaa^M 


'"."^  -■iij^-amjiii 


xlli 


INTRODUCTION. 


^ 


li 


it 


it 


t( 


"  the  same  experience  as  ourselves,  this  enhances  still  more  the 
"constancy  of  the  association  between  our  sensations  and  the 
"corresponding  active  energies.     We  ascertain  that  at  times 
"  when  we  ourselves  are  not  affected  by  a  particular  sensation, 
"  as  of  light,  other  persons  are  affected  by  it.     This  leads  us  to 
"generalize  sensation  still  more,  and  to  conceive  to  ourselves  an 
"abstraction   that   comprehends  all  our  experience,  past  and 
"  present,  and  all  the  experience  of  others,  which  abstraction  is 
"  the  utmost  that  our  minds  can  attain  to  respecting  an  external 
"  and  material  world.     So  often  as  I  open  my  eyes  I  have  the 
sensation  of  light  (the  exceptions  are  not  material  to  the  illus- 
tration).   I  thereupon  associate  this  sensation  with  this  action, 
and  I  expect  in  all  future  time  that  the  action  will  lead  to 
"the  sensation.     Other  persons   tell   me   the  same   thing.     I 
"  thereupon  aflSrm  as  a  general  fact  that  an  optical  feeling  will 
"  always  follow  a  certain  muscular  feeling,  to  me  and  to  other 
"  sentient  beings ;   and  I  can  affirm  nothing  more,  nor  can  I 
"have   any  possible   interest  or  concern  with  anything  more. 
"  The  assertion  that  light  and  the  sun  have  a  permanent  and 
"  independent  existence  has,  for  its  basis  and  for  its  import,  that 
"  I,  and  all  other  beings  with  whom  I  have  had  any  communi- 
"  cation,  have  had  a  certain  optical  feeling  in  conjunction  with 
"  certain  activities  of  which  we  have  been  conscious,  and  firmly 
"  anticipate  the  same  coincidence  in  the  future.     The  external 
"  existence  of  a  stone  wall  means  the  association  between  ceiiain 
"  optical  impressions  and  a  particular  locomotive  effort,  and  a 
further  and  still  more  decided  association  between  touch  and 
another  effort,  that,  namely,  which  we  call  the  sense  of  resist- 
**  ance.     Finding  the  same  sequence  to  exist  with  reference  to 
"  beings  in  general,  we  generalize  the  fact  to  the  very  farthest 
"  limits,  and  affirm  that  it  has  always  been  so  in  the  past,  and 
"  will  always  be  so  in  the  future.     Our  language  is  ^pt  to  go 
"  beyond  this ;   out  of  all   the  particular  experiences  (which 
"  alone  constitute  the  real  evidence  for  the  proposition)  we  con- 
"  struct  an  experience  in  the  abstract,  a  most  anomalous  fiction, 
that  goes  the  length  of  affirming  that  the  sensation  is  not  only 
sure  to  occur  along  with  the  appropriate  actions,  but  that  it 
"  exists  whether  these  actions  take  place  or  not.     We  seem  to 
"  have  no  better  way  of  a«?suring  ourselves  and  all  mankind  that 


n 


« 


<f 


(( 


INTRODUCTION. 


xliii 


i< 

i( 
« 

€i 

it 

It 
tt 
it 
tt 
it 
t( 
tt 
tt 
<t 
tt 
tt 


with  the  conscious  movement  of  opening  the  eyes  there  will 
always  be  a  consciousness  of  light,  than  by  saying  that  the 
light  exists  as  independent  fact,  with  or  without  any  eyes  to 
see  it.  But  if  we  consider  the  case  fairly,  we  shall  see  that 
this  assertion  errs  not  simply  in  being  beyond  any  evidence 
that  we  can  have,  but  also  in  being  a  self-contradiction.  We 
are  affirming  that  to  have  an  existence  out  of  our  minds 
which  we  cannot  know  but  as  in  our  minds.  In  words  we 
assert  independent  existence,  while  in  the  very  act  of  doing 
so  we  contradict  ourselves.  Even  a  possible  world  implies  a 
possible  mind  to  perceive  it,  just  as  much  as  an  actual  world 
implies  an  actual  mind.  The  mistake  of  the  common  modes 
of  expression  in  this  matter,  is  the  mistake  of  supposing  the 
abstractions  of  the  mind  to  have  a  separate  and  independent 
existence.  This  is  the  doctrine  of  the  Platonic  *  ideas',  or 
*  forms*,  which  are  understood  to  impart  all  that  is  common 
to  the  particular  facts  or  realities,  instead  of  being  derived 
from  them  by  an  operation  of  the  mind.  Thus  the  actual 
circles  of  nature  derive  their  mathematical  properties  from  the 
pre-existing  'idea',  or  circle  in  the  abstract;  the  actual  men 
owe  their  sameness  to  the  ideal  man.  So  instead  of  looking 
upon  the  doctrine  of  an  external  and  independent  world  as  a 
generalization  or  abstraction  grounded  on  our  particular  expe- 
riences, summing  up  the  past,  and  predicting  the  future,  we 
have  got  into  the  way  of  maintaining  the  abstraction  to  be  an 
independent  reality,  the  foundation,  or  cause,  or  origin  of  all 
those  experiences". 

Mr  Bain's  book  is  a  book  founded  upon  elaborate 
anatomical  detail,  expressing  then,  or  trying  to  express, 
the  facts  of  mind  in  language  most  concretely  (so  to 
call  it)  physiological,  and  proceeding  on  very  rapidly  (I 
mean  \vith  very  little  of  an  intermediation  or  process) 
to  the  more  complicated  or  as  we  might  say  abstract 
facts  of  mind;  giving,  or  attempting  to  give,  an  ac- 
count of  them  in  the  same  manner.  With  all  this  there 
is  united  what  1  should  call  a  better  philosophy,  that  is 
a  more  true  and   faithful   account  of  the  activity  of 


If 
it 
it 
it 
ft 
ft 
tt 
tt 
ft 
tt 
tt 


xliv 


INTRODUCTION. 


'M 


I 


the  mind,  than  occurs  in  many  books  where  the  philo- 
sophy is  pursued  as  the  important  object,  and  in  the 
view  of  which  books,  Mr  Bain's  physiology  would  be 
looked  upon  as  materialism.  I  want  to  understand, 
how  the  philosophy  and  physiology  are  related  to  each 
other.  With  Mr  Bain,  what  exists  ?  In  the  middle  of 
a  book  of  physiology,  we  come  upon  something,  upon 
thought,  which,  like  an  enchanter's  wand,  makes  every- 
thing vanish — makes  all  explode  without  even  remain- 
ing itself — we  come  upon  a  universal  solvent — for  it  is 
not  simply  the  external  world,  but  we,  corporeally,  that 
vanish — and  yet  all  this  occurs  in  the  middle  of  a  sys- 
tem giving  an  occount  of  our  bodies,  our  organs,  our 
senses,  &c.  I  will  not  dwell  upon  this :  so  far  from 
mentioning  it  as  any  discredit  to  Mr  Bain  I  mention  it 
rather  as  an  example  of  what  I  have  said,  that  where 
there  is  the  clearest  view  of  the  physiology  on  the  one 
side  there  will  be  the  clearest  view  of  the  philosophy  on 
the  other:  only  that  I  am  not  at  all  sure  that  we  any 
of  us  understand  how  the  philosophy  and  the  physiology 
go  together,  or  what  relation  they  bear  the  one  to  the 
other. 

In  the  same  way  I  want  to  understand  the  value  of 
the  language  (not  at  all  peculiar  to  Mr  Bain)  that  '^  we 
"  have  got  into  the  way  of  maintaining  the  abstraction  " 
(i.e.  the  universe  of  things  about  us,  the  phenomenal  uni- 
verse, as  I  have  called  it)  "  to  be  an  independent  reality  ". 
(Could  we  have  done  otherwise?)  And  in  the  same 
way,  that  the  general  experience  which  we  construct 
from  particular  experiences  is  "  a  most  anomalous  fic- 
tion". This  is  the  language  it  is  to  be  observed  of  a 
physiologist  or  physical  philosopher,  who  has  taken 
this  supposed  independent  reality  and  general  expe- 
rience for  his  basis  all  along.     The  question  with  me 


INTRODUCTION. 


xlv 


about  all  this  is.  What  ought  we  to  think  ?  Is  the  way 
of  thinking  into  which  we  have  got  as  to  the  reality  of 
the  universe  a  bad  way  of  thinking,  or  not  ?  If  it  is, 
how  did  we  fall  into  it,  and  how  may  we  get  into  a 
better?  And  similarly  as  to  the  experience — are  we 
right  in  constructing  this  most  anomalous  fiction  ? 

So  much  as  this  I  just  mention  in  order  that  the 
nature  of  the  points  to  come  under  consideration  in 
what  I  hope  will  shortly  follow  that  which  is  given  here 
may  be  a  little  anticipated. 

I  send  out  these  pages  with  much  misgiving,  not  as 
to  the  substance  of  them— all  that  I  can  say  about  this 
is  that  they  represent  real  thought,  and  of  what  value 
the  thought  is  can  only  be  seen  when  it  comes  to  be 
compared  with  the  thought  of  others — but  as  to  the 
way  in  which  the  manner  or  method  (if  it  is  to  be 
called  method)  of  them  may  be  taken.  They  are  full 
of  egotism.  I  can  only  say  that  in  reading  what  others ' 
have  written  it  is  a  matter  continually  occurring  to  me, 
how  much  better  it  would  have  been  if  they  had  been 
more  egotistic  ;  how  much  better  we  should  understand 
what  they  meant  if  they  had  described  the  manner  in 
which  the  thing  had  come  to  present  itself  to  their 
mind,  and  let  us  a  little  see  their  thought  in  the  form- 
ing :  and  also  how  many  pages  of  literary  history,  end- 
ing at  last  in  unsatisfactory  result,  would  have  been 
also  saved  if  this  had  been  the  case.  What  is  to  me  of 
interest  before  all  other  things,  is  thought :  it  is  because 
God,  the  Beginner  of  all  reality,  thought  as  he  did  that 
things  are  what  they  are,  and  we  at  once,  in  finding 
out  what  things  are,  or  what  is  reality,  are  following 
and  tracing,  so  far  as  our  faculties  go,  his  thought,  and 
also,  in  thinking  rightly  or  working  out  our  own  intel- 


^ 


ill 


If 


xlvi 


INTRODUCTION. 


ligence,  which  is  derived  from  his,  are  finding  out  what 
reality  is.  Everything  about  our  intelligence  is  in  my 
view  interesting  and  useful :  its  results,  so  far  as  we 
can  trust  them,  which  are  what  we  call  fact  or  truth : 
its  mistakes,  which  are  the  road  to  this :  the  conflict 
of  intelligences,  or  discussion  (or  this  same  goino-  on 
imaginatively  within  the  mind)  which  ordinarily  forms 
the  way  by  which  from  manifold  mistake  there  is  struck 
out  truth.  Humanum  est  errare :  it  is  a  prerogative 
of  man  to  mistake :  what  of  nature  or  of  fact  is  to  im- 
press itself  upon  each  kind  of  the  lower  animals  does 
so  almost  infallibly :  man  may  learn  anything,  but  to 
balance  this,  he  has  got  to  learn  each  thing  by  specula- 
tion and  trial,  at  the  hazard  of  much  mistake.  If  the 
human  race  were  too  afraid  of  mistake  it  would  learn 
\  nothing. 

If  from  my  saying  so  much  about  what  I  think  my- 
self or  what  seems  to  me,  it  is  concluded  that  I  set  too 
high  a  value  upon  my  thinking,  and  that  this  also  is 
the  meaning  of  my  saying,  that  human  intellect  or  in- 
telligence is  what  we  ought  to  have  confidence  in,  I 
would  answer  as  follows  :  Had  I  more  confidence  in  my 
own  thought,  much  of  what  here  appears  would  pro- 
bably have  appeared  long  ago.  I  think,  and  am  sorry 
for  it,  that  I  have  had  my  full  share  of  a  state  of  mind 
too  common,  I  am  able  to  see  now  that  I  look  upon 
a  good  many  younger  than  myself,  which  is  made  up  I 
think  of  diffidence,  fastidiousness,  and  an  indisposition  to 
follow  thought  out,  and  which  there  seems  something  in 
our  literary  atmosphere  strangely,  in  respect  of  philoso- 
phy, to  encourage.  I  say  unfeignedly,  both  that  my 
most  earnest  wish  as  to  what  I  have  done  myself  is  that 
it  may  stimulate  thought  in  others,  and  also  that  to  lead 
the  thought  of  others  is  a  thing  to  which  I  feel  very. 


i 


INTRODUCTION. 


xlvii 


little  disposition — it  is  a  cardinal  maxim  of  mine  that 
every  one's  thought  should  be  his  own — I  should  wish 
to  think  rightly  myself,  and  to  help,  if  I  can,  others  to 
do  so  in  their  own  way.  I  should  like  to  make  them 
value  their  own  thinking,  and  feel,  that  if  it  is  genuine 
and  their  own,  it  has  some  value  for  others,  and  if  they 
are  at  all  in  circumstances  to  follow  it  out,  may  very 
likely  have  much.  And  when  I  speak  of  belief  or  con- 
fidence in  human  intellect  or  intelligence,  I  use  the  ex- 
pression more  to  make  people  enlarge  and  heighten 
their  view  of  intelligence  than  for  any  other  purpose. 
Intellect  is  not  something  opposed  to  imagination,  not 
even  something  opposed  to  feeling :  intellect  is  what 
I  am  persuaded  there  are  very  few  who  have  not  much 
more  of  than  they  think  they  have,  or  than  they  ever 
bring  out  or  make  any  use  of.  By  the  philosophical 
spirit,  which  is  the  same  thing  as  being  true  to  our 
own  intelligence,  all  I  should  understand  is  the  getting 
the  notion  of  using  intelligence,  not  merely  for  advance- 
ment in  life,  not  merely  for  the  learning  what  others 
have  thought,  but  for  individual  just  and  correct 
thought,  and  the  application  of  knowledge  to  the  aid 
of  this.     But  I  have  said  enousfh. 


I  may  mention  here,  about  the  spelling  of  two  words  which 
occur  very  frequently,  that  I  write  'phenomenon',  'phenomenal* 
when  I  use  the  words  in  their  present  English  application  or  in 
a  sense  of  my  own  derived  from  it,  and  '  phaenomenon',  *phaeno- 
menal'  when  I  use  them  in  an  etymological  reference,  or  am 
commenting  on  philosophers  who  spell  them  in  this  latter 
manner. 

May,  1865.  ■  . 


II 


11! 


CHAPTER  I. 

PHENOMENALISM. 

I  AM  about  to  try  to  explain  a  manner  of  thought  which, 
in  various  applications,  or  perhaps  misapplications,  of  it,  I  have 
been  in  the  habit  of  mentally  characterizing,  and  perhaps  of 
speaking  of,  as  '  positivism.' 

I  shall  now  however  not  use  this  term,  but  the  term  'phe- 
nomenalism.'    I  understand  the  two  terms  to  express  in  sub- 
stance the  same  thing,  and  what  the  thing  is,  will  appear  in 
what  follows.     The  reason  for  the  change  is,  because  in  the 
purely  intellectual  application  which  I  shall  now  make  of  the 
term,  'phenomenalism*  may  perhaps  carry  with  it  less  danger 
of  extraneous  associations  being  joined  with  it,  and  may  ex- 
press what  I  mean  more  generally :  for  the  present  purpose,  I 
will  remount  from  M.  Comte  to  the  times  of  Plato.     I  think 
that  if  the  course   of  man's  study  of  nature  had  been  more 
fortunate,  and  the  great  onward  movement  of  it  which  began 
four  hundred  years  ago  had  begun  in  the  century  following 
that  of  Plato,  as  in   many  respects  it   very   well   might:   if 
then  the  great  bifurcation  in  philosophy  which  showed  itself 
in  full  conspicuousness  in  that  century  had  been  more  widely 
viewed,  and  not  so  preponderatingly  in  reference  to  Ethics :  if 
Bacon  and  Galileo  had  followed  Aristotle  in  the  next  genera- 
tion, instead  of  at  the  distance  of  near  two  thousand  years,  and 
if  we  were  to  imagine  a  Greek  M.  Comte,  some  time  afterwards, 
descanting  on  the  manner  in  which  science  had  advanced  so  as 
to  be  fruitful,  and  denouncing,  as  in  fact  many  of  the  Epicu- 
reans did,  the  hindrances  offered  to  it  by  superstition  and  fan- 
ciful metaphysics :  philosophers  of  his  way  of  thinking  would 
jw    probably  have  called  themselves  and  been  called  'phaenomenics' 
^      or  by  some  term  of  similar  import.     The  notion  of  unreality 


PHENOMENALISM. 


[chap. 


involved  etymologically  in  the  term  'phaenomenon'  would  not 
probably  have  hindered  its  use  in  this  application  more  than 
the  idea  of  *  arbitrariness'  involved  in  that  of  'positive'  and 
'positivist'  has  hindered  the  application  of  this:  'phenomenon' 
since  the  time  of  its  first  use  has  been  the  term  most  simply 
expressing  the  (so-called)  facts  of  nature  considered  in  contrast 
with  any  (so-called)  metaphysical  theories  as  to  the  origin  of 
these  facts,  their  causes,  or  their  purposes. 

^  I  shall  call  then  by  the  name  of  'phenomenalism'  that  notion 
of  the  various  objects  of  knowledge  which  go  to  make  up  the 
universe  which  belongs  to  the  point  of  view  of  physical  science : 
and  what  I  shall  endeavour  to  show  is  that  this  phenomenalism, 
thoroughly  true  in  its  own  province,  and  such,  that  if  alien 
elements  be  mingled  with  it  false  science  is  the  result,  is  yet 
not  the  whole  of  what  the  human  mind,  either  intellectually 
or  morally,  calls  for  and  should  have :  that  in  the  view  of  phi- 
losophy or  the  examination  of  the  nature  of  knowledge,  phe- 
nomenalism is  an  abstraction  (so  to  call  it)  from  something 
wider  than  itself,  with  the  truth,  real  but  partial,  which  belongs 
to  the  notion  of  an  abstraction:  that  the  progress,  an  undoubted 
historical  fact,  made  by  both  the  individual  mind  and  the  mind 
of  the  race  in  clearness  of  phenomenal  view  is  not  an  absolute 
correction  of  what  has  gone  before,  not  simply  a  substitution  of 
something  better  for  this,  but  a  correction  of  it  in  one  par- 
ticular direction,  leaving  what  thus  purports  to  be  corrected 

\  still  important  and  of  force  in  other  directions. 
'  If,  beyond  and  before  this  phenomenalism  we  at  all  enter 
upon  the  consideration  how  we,  feeling  and  thinking  beings, 
come  to  the  knowledge  of  the  facts  that  it  embodies :  or  if, 
beyond  and  after  it,  we  enter  upon  the  consideration  how  we 
are  to  act,  for  what  purpose  we  are  to  employ  our  phenomenal 
knowledge :  we  come  into  an  entirely  different  region  :  the 
region,  as  to  the  method  of  our  thought,  not  of  physical  science 
but  of  philosophy  or  the  higher  logic :  the  region,  if  we  are 
to  employ  a  term  antithetic  to  phenomenalism,  of  what  I  have 
called  idealism.  But  the  word  idea  belongs  in  rather  a  different 
manner  to  the  consideration  of  the  manner  in  which  we  arrive 
at  our  knowledge  and  the  consideration  of  the  purpose  for 
which  we  should  act. 


I.] 


PHENOMENALISM. 


On  this  difference  I  will  say  just  now  only  so  much  as  this  : 
that  we  gain  our  knowledge  by  a  succession  of  mental  efforts 
which  are  perpetually  self-correcting,  the  correction  however 
being  of  that  kind  which  I  just  described,  so  that  while  our 
actual  knowledge  turns  out  something  different  in  nature  from 
what  we  expected,  the  expectation  and  previous  view  of  know- 
ledge still  remains  with  its  value  in  its  own  place.  This,  I  am 
afraid,  is  not  as  yet  intelligible,  but  I  shall  try  to  explain  how 
ideas  lead  us  to  phenomenal  knowledge :  how  they  lead  us, 
in  rather  a  different  application  of  the  term,  to  action,  is 
matter  for  another  discussion.  Phenomenalism  may  be  called, 
if  we  like  it,  a  step  of  thought  or  knowledge  between  two 
regions  of  idealism.  The  phenomenal  world  is  the  fit  and 
as  it  were  intended  filling  up  of  the  vast,  but  yet  in  many 
respects  definite,  particular  or  qualitied,  fixedly  shaped,  capacity 
for  knowledge,  which  constitutes  our  ideal  or  imaginative 
nature.  In  this  respect  the  ideal  is  the  subjective,  the  phe- 
nomenal the  objective.  But  the  consideration  of  the  relation 
of  this  which  thus  fills  our  mind  to  the  mind  which  it  fills 
carries  us,  as  I  hope  we  shall  see,  to  a  higher  objectiveness  or 
higher  idea  of  existence.  I  shall  consider  a  little  what  meaning 
there  is  in  the  notion  of  the  ideal  being  the  true  existence,  the 
phenomenal  a  subjective,  and  what  is  more,  illusory  one. 

But  there  is  much  to  be  done  first :  and  what  I  wish  to  say 
now  is,  that  it  is  impossible  to  write  satisfactorily  on  a  subject 
such  as  this  without  having  clearly  before  our  minds  the  dis- 
tinction between  what,  on  the  one  side,  is  physical,  or  (in  respect 
of  scientific  treatment)  phenomenal,  and  on  the  other  what  is 
philosophical  or  logical.  I  think  both  Dr  Whewell  and  Mr 
Mill  err  in  this  respect,  I  shall  try  to  show  how.  I  think  it 
most  likely  I  shall  err  myself,  for  the  matter  is  abstract  and 
difficult,  but  I  hope  that  our  errors  will  help  forward  the  truth 
in  others.  The  best  way  towards  avoidance  of  error  seems  to 
me  to  be  to  try  to  exhibit  so  far  as  it  is  possible,  independently 
of  each  other,  in  each  case  as  if,  so  far  as  we  can  admit  the 
supposition,  the  other  did  not  exist,  the  physical  or  phenomenal 
view  of  the  matter  or  object  of  knowledge  on  the  one  side,  and 
the  philosophical  (logical  or  epistemological)  view  of  the  fact 
or  process  of  knowledge,  on  the  other.     When  we  see  the  two 

1—2 


PHENOMENALISM. 


[chap. 


I.] 


PHENOMENALISM. 


things,  so  far  as  they  can  be  separated,  separate,  we  shall  put 
together  such  pai-ts  of  each  as  have  to  be  put  together  with 
less  likelihood  of  error. 

The  phenomenal  verb  is  *is'  in  the  sense  of  'exist*,  with 
immediate  application  of  it  to  certain  objects  of  our  thought: 
the  thought  itself,  the  nature  of  the  existence,  the  grounds  of 
our  supposition  of  it,  not  entering  into  consideration. 

The  verb  of  philosophy,  or  when  our  point  of  departure  is 
consciousness  or  our  own  personality,  is  one  which  has  scarcely 
existence  in  popular  language :  we  might  consider  it  to  be 
*  feel*  used  neutrally,  or  *feel  ourselves'  (the  Greek  exo))  with  an 
adverb.  In  this  consciousness,  in  the  philosopher's  view,  is  the 
root  of  all  certainty  or  knowledge.  The  problem  of  philosophy 
is  the  finding  the  relation  between  existence  and  this. 

Speaking  generally,  that  is  with  certain  qualifications  which 
I  may  have  to  allude  to,  we  must  understand  which  view  we  are 
taking,  and  in  the  philosophical  view  must  talk  with  great  care 
of  *is',  in  the  phenomenal  must  talk  with  great  care  of  *I',  or 
*we',  'perceive,'  'feel',  &c.  this  or  that.  Consciousness  or  feeling 
is  only  a  phenomenal  fact  in  certain  particular  ways  which  I 
shall  speak  of.  The  phenomenal  assumption  is  that  the  world 
of  reality  exists  quite  independently  of  being  known  by  any 
knowing  beings  in  it :  just  the  same  as  it  would  exist,  if  there 
were  no  knowledge  or  feeling  in  any  members  of  it :  it  is  only 
results  of  such  feeling  that  it  is  concerned  with.  The  Berkeleian 
idealism  is  little  more  than  the  easy  demonstration  that  this 
view,  from  a  philosophical  standing-point,  is  untenable  :  that  the 
notion  of  existence,  as  distingTiished  from  perceivedness,  is, 
nakedly  and  rudely  stated,  as  abhorrent  to  the  philosopher  as 
that  of  perceivingness  and  will  in  any  part  of  the  matter  the 
laws  of  which  he  is  seeking  is  to  the  phenomenalist. 

In  spite  of  this,  the  language  of  philosophers  constantly 
betokens  the  notion,  held  in  a  manner  which  seems  to  me 
confused,  of  a  double  point  of  departure  or  source  of  reality : 
of  the  notion,  in  face  of  each  other,  of  an  independently  exist- 
ing phenomenal  world  and  a  perceiving  mind,  without  any  pre- 
liminary consideration  what  each  of  these  notions  requires,  the 
language  indicating  sometimes  the  one  point  of  departure, 
sometimes  the  other.     What  I  mean  will,  as  we  go  on,  appear. 


/ 


Let  us  for  a  moment,  taking  for  granted  the  existence  on 
the  one  side  of  our  thinking  self,  and  on  the  other,  of  an  uni- 
verse the  object  of  knowledge,  examine  what  we  mean  by 
'sensation'. 

What  we  call  sensation  is  something  intervening,  on  this 
supposition,  between  us  the  subject  and  the  universe  the  object, 
of  knowledge,  and  supplying  the  means  by  which  they  are 
brought  together.  We  perceive  things:  the  first  and  the  last 
word  express  the  supposedly  independent  realities  :  the  middle 
word  describes  a  process  of  communication  between  them.  The 
point  of  meeting  is  a  corporeal  or  physical  communication  be- 
tween the  various  portions  of  matter  which  we  know  and  one 
particular  portion  of  matter  which  we  call  our  body,  which 
particular  portion  is  constituted  or  organized  in  such  a  manner 
that  according  to  the  nature  of  the  communication  there  shall 
accompany  or  follow  it,  in  the  supposed  self,  or  what  we  call 
the  mind,  this  or  that  feeling  of  pleasure  or  pain,  or  this  or  that 
felt  exertion  of  will.  The  sensation  is  not  the  communication, 
but  is  this  which  I  have  described  as  accompanying  it :  is  in 
fact  a  part,  and  the  foundation,  of  our  consciousness.  On  the 
one  side  of  the  communication,  or  within  it,  we  may  say,  stands 
this  sensation :  on  the  other  side,  the  outside  of  it,  stand  the 
various  circumstances  of  body  which  make  the  sensation 
various,  and  to  be  of  one  kind  or  of  another :  which  we  call 
for  instance,  qualities.  While  still  further  within  and  with- 
out stands  something  more  again:  namely  on  the  one  side, 
within,  the  concentration  of  our  consciousness  which  makes  us 
use  the  terms  'I',  'we';  on  the  other  side,  without,  the  under- 
stood reality  or  substantiality  which  makes  us  use  the  term 
'things';  which  makes  us  consider  that  body  or  matter  is 
something  more  than  its  qualities  as  we  are  something  more 
than  our  sensations :  which  gives  to  our  pursuit  of  knowledge 
something  of  the  character,  always,  of  hunting  after  something 
which  eludes  our  grasp,  of  endeavouring,  in  a  way,  to  under- 
stand the  meaning  of  our  own  knowledge,  and  to  find  out  why 
we  think  in  the  manner  in  which  we  inevitably  do  think  :  and, 
as  we  shall  see,  the  character  of  perpetual  self-correction  and 
disappointment  as  well  as  attainment. 

The  communication  between  subject  and  object  or  between 


m 


N 


PHENOMENALISM. 


[chap. 


I.] 


PHENOMENALISM. 


j '  US  *  and  '  things',  which  is  the  proper  knowledge  and  the  discus- 
sion of  which  is  philosophy,  may  be  said  to  include  in  the  middle 
of  it,  as  the  means  of  it,  the  communication  between  our  organs 
of  sense  and  the  qualities  of  the  world  beyond  ourselves.    But 
this  latter  communication  again  requires  further  analysis.     The 
central  part  of  it  is  a  material  or  corporeal  movement  (I  use  the 
word  movement  in  a  wide  and  loose  sense,  to  include  possible 
chemical  modification  or  change  which   perhaps  may  not  be 
movement  proper)  of  parts  of  our  organs  of  sensation,  as  e.g. 
what  we  call  affections  of  the  brain,  optic  nerve,  &c. ;  and  this  is 
the  real  phenomenal  fact  upon  which  our  consciousness  and  our 
knowledge  of  the  universe  depend.     What  I  have  called  pheno- 
menalism is  such  a  view  of  the  universe  as  will  embrace  as 
a  part  of  it  this  movement,  simply  considered  as  a  material  and 
corporeal  movement,  harmonize  with  it,  and,  if  we  may  use  the 
expression,  fit  on  to  it.     That,  in  a  sphere  of  thought  in  which 
the  term  '  movement '  is  without  meaning,  this  movement  is 
accompanied  or  followed  by  what  we  call  consciousness,  by  feel- 
ings of  pleasure  and  pain,  exertion  of  will,  &c.  is  nothing  in 
itself,  to  phenomenalism,  which  has  no  means  of  dealing  with, 
or  language  to  express,  facts,  (if  we  may  call  them  so)  such  as 
this.     It  can  so  far,  and  so  far  only,  deal  with  consciousness  as 
that  it  may  recognize  or  discover  the  existence  of  what  it  may 
so  term,  by  phenomenal  effects  which  it  produces :  but  it  can  do 
no  more.     We  are  conscious  of  what  we  feel  ourselves,  but  be- 
yond ourselves  we  cannot  perceive  feeling,  except  so  far  as  we 
judge  from  effects  which  it  produces,  or   conclude,  doubtfully, 
from  analogy:  feeling  is  the  secret,  the  incommunicable  pro- 
perty, of  whatever  being  possesses  it :  there  might  be  an  endless 
variety  of  feeling,  for  all  that  we  know,  in  different  portions  of 
the  universe,  and  it  would  be  all  the  same  to  us. 

The  word  'sensation',  in  any  proper  application  of  the  term, 
expresses  a  particular  variety  of  feeling,  and  as  such  belongs  not 
to  the  world  of  phenomenalism  but  to  that  of  philosophy  or  the 
science  of  knowledge.  It  is  from  want  of  attention  to  this,  that 
much  philosophical  confusion  has  arisen.  Movements  or  changes 
take  place  in  the  subtle  matter  of  our  brain  or  nerves :  these 
may  be  closely  accompanied  by  feelings,  or  states  of  conscious- 
ness,  however  we  may  like  to  call  them :  it  is  to  these  latter  . 


that  the  term  '  sensation '  properly  belongs :  but  these,  as  we 
have  seen,  are  of  no  phenomenal  consideration.  The  phenome- 
non, or  fact  describable  and  demonstrable  to  the  common  expe- 
rience of  all,  which  takes  place  as  to  knowledge,  is  simply  this  : 
as  to  the  eye,  e.g. :  light  strikes  it  according  to  its  own  laws, 
changes,  mechanical  and  chemical,  take  place  in  the  eye,  the 
optic  nerve,  and  the  brain,  and  a  change  perhaps  takes  place  in 
the  movements  (such  as  they  were  previously)  of  the  whole 
body,  so  that  (to  put  the  language  shortly)  the  man  who  was 
walking  right  up  against  a  tree  now  walks  by  the  side  of  it. 
Physiology  here  tries,  as  it  can,  to  make  the  chain  of  consecu- 
tion, or  of  cause  and  effect,  continuous.  It  can  follow  the  im- 
pression, and  trace  back  the  volitional  action,  to  a  certain  degree 
inwards,  and  it  is  conceivable  that  it  might  be  able  to  complete 
the  chain,  or  follow  the  phenomenal  process  from  the  affection 
of  the  nerves  of  sense  and  motion  which  leads  to  an  ordinary 
perception  round  to  the  action  or  changes  in  the  nerves  of 
motion  which  lead  to  our  walking  one  way  rather  than  another: 
but  however  it  may  do  this,  it  cannot  explain  sensation,  or  take 
one  step  towards  it.  The  physiologist  may  tell  the  man  what 
takes  place  in  his  nerves  and  brain,  but  the  man,  and  he  only, 
knows  what  his  feeling  is,  and  he  cannot  even  communicate  it. 
The  physiologist  may  deny  that  there  is  any  meaning  in  the 
term  'feeling'  as  distinguished  from  the  phenomenal  process 
which  he  exhibits :  if  he  does  so,  he  only  brings  out  into 
stronger  relief  the  fundamental  difference  between  the  phe- 
nomenal and  philosophical  domains  of  thought,  so  that  on  the 
principles  of  the  one,  the  other  is  in  the  first  instance  not  even 
conceivable,  and  the  simplest  facts  of  the  one  may  be  denied 
by  the  other  without  any  appeal  which  can  settle  the  question. 

The  phenomenal  fact  then  or  the  fundamental  fact  with 
which  phenomenalism  must  harmonize  is  not  sensation,  which 
is  a  feeling,  but  the  communication  between  natural  agents  or 
portions  of  outward  nature  and  the  matter  of  our  organs  of 
sense,  that  is,  in  fact,  our  body.  For  our  body  is  in  fact  one 
single  sense  to  us  with  various  sub-senses  or  special  organizations 
for  sensation,  in  the  same  way  as,  in  the  point  of  view  of  action, 
it  is  one  single  machine  with  various  sub-machines  to  obey  our 
will.    Phenomenally,   our  body  is  ourselves,  and  instead   of 


8 


PHENOMENALISM. 


[chap. 


sensation  we  should,  in  propriety,  speak  of  what  I  have  called 
communication,  just  as  in  propriety,  instead  of  action,  we  should 
speak  of  motion.  Of  course  we  may  speak  of  sensation  and 
action,  if  we  attend  to  what  we  mean :  if  we  mean  sensation  in 
the  same  sort  of  way  as  we  speak  of  the  sensibility  of  plants,  as 
a  something,  that  is,  which  we  judge  of  by  effects,  but  the 
nature  of  which  in  itself,  as  felt  independently  of  effects,  (or 
whether  it  has  such  nature),  we  say  nothing  of.  With  the  same 
caution  of  course  we  may  also  speak  of  action.  But  the  term 
sensation  is  very  constantly  spoken  of  as  a  phenomenal  fact 
without  this  caution  being  borne  in  mind. 

The  word  '  impression,'  used  often  in  a  similar  way  to  '  sen- 
sation,' is  not  in  the  same  manner  objectionable,  but  is  so  in 
another,  viz.  that  it  suggests  the  notion  (in  ordinary  philoso- 
phical language)  of  sensation  or  perception  being  only  passive 
on  our  part,  or  of  the  communication  being  only  withinwards 
from  without,  and  not,  in  a  large  portion  of  it,  withoutwards 
from  within.  In  reality,  the  sensation  or  feeling  is  in  part  an 
accompaniment  of  movements  or  changes  in  our  nerves  which 
the  natural  agents  produce,  and  in  part  an  accompaniment  of 
movements  or  changes  in  them,  which,  in  ordinary  and  philoso- 
phical language,  we  ourselves  make :  and  which,  in  phenomenal 
language,  are  mechanical  sequels  of  the  other  changes,  to  be 
accounted  for  as  may  be.  We  say  a  tree  in  front  of  us  makes 
an  impression  on  our  eye  or  sense:  but  in  reality  what  takes 
place  is  that  the  colour  of  the  tree  (so  to  speak)  makes  such  an 
impression,  but  that  correspondingly  with  this  there  are  all  sorts 
of  movements  of  the  eye  by  us,  by  which  we  measure  its  magni- 
tude, and  (associating  our  present  sensation  with  many  past 
ones)  its  distance  and  other  particulars  about  it:  and  all  this 
goes  to  make  up  that  which  is  loosely  described  as  '  impression*. 
I  shall  therefore,  to  avoid  misunderstanding,  use  the  word 
'  communication*. 

The  phenomenal  world  is  then  that  of  which  we,  meaning 
here  by  we  our  animated  bodies,  form  a  part,  or,  more  properly, 
since  a  world,  or  universe,  a  whole  of  things,  is  something  which 
phenomenalism  does  not  suggest  to  us,  it  is  an  extension,  loosely 
speakmg  we  may  say  a  generalization,  of  that  matter  of  which 
our  body  is  to  us  the  type.     I  must  here  again  repeat,  that  the 


I.] 


PHENOMENALISM. 


9 


*  we',  or  the  'I'  spoken  of  here,  is  not  the  'we'  or  '7.'  of  con- 
sciousness.    *  I ',   phenomenally,   represents   one   individual   of 
humanity.     To   find  phenomenal  reality,   we  must  find  that 
which  can  be  known,  so  far  as  it  is  known,  in  common  by  all. 
Whereas  consciousness,  as  we  have  seen,  is  peculiar  to-  each. 
So  far  as  phenomenal  considerations  go,    each  man,  by  con- 
sciousness, may  have  his  own  world*.    At  this  moment,  with 
the  distinctest  phenomenal  conceptions,  no  one  can  tell  but 
that  what  he  sees  as  green  may  be  seen  by  another  as  blue 
(provided  the  difference  of  inward  view,  so  to  call  it,  is  con- 
sistent), and  no  increase  of  our  physical  knowledge  about  blue 
and  green  will  help  us  in  the  least  to  know  this.     But  phe- 
nomenal reality,  so  far  as  it  exists,  is  what  it  is  quite  inde- 
pendently of  the  manner  in  which  any  one  knows  it,  and  even 
independently    of   its  being  known  at  all  by  anybody,  or  of 
there  being  any  such  thing  as  consciousness,  or  as  mind,  to  know 
it,  except  so  far,  as  I  have  said,  as  this  '  mind '  may  produce 
phenomenal  effects.     Since  we  cannot  talk  except  of  something 
which  we  think  and  can  know  about,  our  talking  about  matter 
implies  its  knownness  to  us  (so  far  as  it  is  said  to  exist),  without 
which  we  could  not  talk  of  its  existence;  this  is  what  I  meant 
when  I  said  some  time  since,  that  the  phenomenal  view  is  an 
abstraction  from  the  more  general  philosophical  one:  the  full 
fact  is,  that  matter  (or  however  we  describe  it)  is  known  to  us, 
and  we  give  our  attention  to  it  as  existingy  leaving   out   of 
account,  for  phenomenalism,  what  is  contained  in  the  other  part 
of  the  fact,  viz.  it  being  understood,  or  felt  as  existing,  by  a 
conscious  being  or  mind.     The   thing  perhaps   may   be   best 
understood  by  some  by  being  put  in  this  way :  the  phenomenal 

1  Hence  it  is  that  physical  facts  are  after  all  phenomena  only,  for  we  say 
they  exist  because  we  conceive  them  or  think  about  them,  and  how  deep  in  us 
goes  the  conceiving  and  thinking  of  them  by  each  one  of  us  in  the  same  way,  is 
what  we  cannot  tell.  Hence  too  the  effort  of  philosophy  from  the  first  to  find  fact 
or  reality  not  subject  to  this  difficulty,  but  in  regard  of  which  mind  might  trust 
mind  to  the  bottom,  and  be  sure  of  identity  of  thought.  The  escape  from  the 
difficulty  of  phenomena  being  phenomena,  is,  in  the  direction  of  what  I  have  called 
phenomenalism,  by  a  comparison  of  experiences,  and  the  putting  together  what 
will  stand  such  comparison,  as  a  something  supposedly  existing,  in  the  manner 
which  I  have  described,  independently  of  being  known.  The  escape  in  the  di- 
rection of  the  higher  philosophy,  which  I  do  not  dwell  on  now,  is,  in  my  view, 
the  commimication,  by  means  of  phenomena,  with  mind  above  them. 


10 


PHENOMENALISU. 


[chap. 


I-] 


PHENOMENALISM. 


11 


view  of  the  universe  is  that  view  according  to  which  its  being 
known  to  any  body,  (or  any  part  of  it  being  known),  is  an  ines- 
sential accident  of  it:  existence  is  the  fact,  knowledge  the 
possibility  which  may  supervene.  When,  taking  the  wider  or 
philosophical  view,  we  begin  with  consciousness,  feeling  or 
knowledge  is  the  first  fact,  involving  existence  only  as  a  further 
one :  but  of  this  afterwards. 

We  have  nothing  then,  phenomenally,  to  do  with  the  way 
in  which  the  universe  is  known  to  us,  but  we  have  of  course  to  do 
with  the  way  in  which  the  different  parts  of  it  communicate,  as 
I  have  said,  with  our  bodily  frame.  This  is  so  far  the  centre  or 
type  of  the  phenomenal  universe  to  us,  that  nothing  phenome- 
nally exists  so  far  as  we  are  concerned,  that  is,  can  be  in  any 
way  described  by  us,  unless  it  stands  in  some  relation  to  it. 

This   possibility  of  communication  with  our  body  is   our 
criterion   of  phenomenalism.     But   in   reality,    it   is    not   the 
centre,   but   the   starting   point,    for    our   description   of  the 
phenomenal  universe,  that  our  bodily  frame  furnishes  to  us. 
Sensation,  as  I  have  said,  comes  into  no  phenomenal  notice 
except  as  a  property  of  the  human  frame,  (in  the  same  way 
as  some  sort  of  sensibility  may  be  of  plants)  quite  independ- 
ently of  the  consideration  whether  any  extra-phenomenal  and 
incommunicable  accompaniments,  which  we  may  call  in  general 
feeling,  may  go  with  it.     The  standpoint  of  the  phenomenalist 
is  free  and  the  same  for  any  one,  and  we  might  call  it  '  cosmo- 
centric'  except  in  so  far  as  acquaintance  with  the  phenomenal 
universe  being  as  we  shall  see  an  aggregation,  or  advance  from 
part  to  part,  does  not  properly  admit  the  notion  of  such  a 
centre. 

To  describe  summarily  the  universe  as  viewed  phenome- 
nally, or  on  the  principles  here  mentioned:  space,  to  begin 
with  that,  is  what  matter  (our  body  for  instance),  is  contained 
in  and  moves  in,  the  continent,  if  we  might  so  use  the  word, 
of  matter  :  the  moving  and  changing  of  matter  is  the  result  of 
something  which  we  describe  as  force,  and  time  stands  in  the 
same  relation  to  movement  and  change,  or  to  force  its  cause, 
as  space  stands  in  to  matter  unmoved  and  unchanging;  it  is  its 
continent:  space  always  suggests  to  us  the  possible  filHng  of 
it  with  matter,  and  time  the  possible  filling  of  it  with  change : 


they  are  the  vanishing  points  or  ghosts  of  these.  Spaxje  and 
time  are  phenomenal  realities  in  virtue  of  this  their  relation  to 
matter  and  movement,  not  otherwise.  And  what  space  and 
time  are  filled  with,  phenomenally,  is  not  things,  (an  expression 
which  really  belongs  to  popular  philosophy  in  the  same  way  as 
'qualities,'  'objects,'  &c.  belong  to  philosophy  more  refined)  but 
all  sorts  of  what  I  have  loosely  called  *  natural  agents,'  our 
notions  of  which,  with  the  advance  of  physical  science,  are  con- 
tinually changing  and  improving.  In  phenomenal  or  physical 
view,  it  is  possible  that  a  hundred  years  hence  what  we  call 
matter  may  be  looked  on  as  the  result  simply  of  the  action  of 
various  forces :  I  want  now  to  enter  into  no  details  as  to  the 
physical  constitution  of  the  universe,  which  I  am  incompetent 
to  do,  but  only  to  disentangle  physical  notions  from  (popular 
or  refined)  philosophical  ones.  By  the  'natural  agents'  in  the 
universe  which  communicate  with  the  nerves  of  our  body  I 
mean  the  forces  (or  whatever  they  may  be)  in  what  we  call 
matter  which  make  it  produce  or  resist  pressure,  which  cause 
it  to  have  what  we  call  weight,  I  mean  light,  air  as  conveying 
sound,  chemical  q\ialities  as  producing  those  movements  or 
changes  in  the  nerves  of  our  palate  {e.g)  which  are  attended 
by  the  sensation  of  taste,  and  much  besides  :  but  I  think  I  have 
said  enough  to  suggest  the  sort  of  thing  that  I  mean. 

The  phenomenal  universe  is  a  complicated  play  and  mutual 
action  of  these  various  natural  agents,  one  portion  of  their  play 
and  action  being  that  which  goes  on  from  without  to  within, 
and  from  within  to  without,  between  the  bodily  frame  of  each 
of  us  and  the  rest  of  the  universe,  whether  the  physiologist, 
as  I  have  said,  can  complete  the  circle  within  our  bodily  frame 

or  not. 

Things,  phenomenally,  are  units  of  phenomenal  reality,  de- 
pending upon  measurement  according  to  the  kind  of  measure- 
ment which  the  particular  kind  of  phenomenal  reality  (or  the 
particular  natural  agent)  is  capable  of.  A  stone  is  a  piece  of 
matter  of  such  a  weight  and  magnitude :  gravity  is  a  force  of 
such  a  direction  and  intensity.  Proper  unity  is  not  pheno- 
menal :  phenomenal  unity  is  always  a  supposition.  Supposing 
matter  to  be  really  composed  of  atoms,  these  atoms  must  have 
phenomenal  magnitude,  and  a  microscope  is  conceivable  which 


12 


PHENOMENALISM. 


[chap. 


J-] 


PHENOMENALISM. 


13 


would  give  them  such  to  our  sense :  they  are  therefore  units 
only  by  supposition  and  for  reckoning,  the  considering  them  as 
units  being  suggested  by  our  inability  mechanically  to  divide 
them. 

Kinds  of  things  result,  phenomenally,  from  the  manner  of 
the  arrangement  of  the  elements  of  matter  or  from  the  laws  of 
action  of  natural  agents,  the  special  kind,  i,  e.  genus,  species, 
&c.  in  organized  beings,  being  I  suppose  more  or  less  a  pheno- 
menal puzzle.  An  organized  being  is,  phenomenally,  a  sort  of 
focus  or  centre,  where,  according  to  the  height  (or  riches)  of  the 
organization,  more  or  less  of  natural  agency  converges  or  diverges. 
Life  is  the  name  which  we  give  to  this,  and  it  is  probable  that 
physiological  research  will  more  and  more  enable  us  to  under- 
stand what  life,  phenomenally,  is :  while,  according  to  what  I 
have  said  before,  life,  as  it  is  felt,  is  something  which  we  know, 
so  far  as  we  know  it,  each  one  for  himself,  and  no  phenomenal 
research  can  give  us  in  the  least  degree  more  knowledge  as  to 
this.  It  is  a  physiological  or  phenomenal  fact  that,  in  the  case 
of  life,  there  is  reproduction,  and  like  produces  like,  and  this  is 
the  most  special  and  marked  fact  as  to  what  we  call  kind.  And 
life,  as  I  have  said,  suggests  an  idea  of  unity  which,  pheno- 
menally, is  a  puzzle. 

But  I  do  not  want  to  go  into  detail  as  to  the  phenomenal 
world  or  view,  and  will  leave  it,  to  proceed  to  a  similar  sketch 
of  the  philosophical  world  or  view :  after  I  have  said  a  word 
first,  on  the  phenomenal  test  of  truth,  and  then  on  the  pheno- 
menalist  mind  or  spirit. 

I  conceive  that  of  truth,  phenomenally  considered,  there  are 
two  great  tests  :  the  one,  its  answering  to  our  action,  the  other, 
its  harmonizing  all  our  sensive  powers  and  all  the  different 
experience  of  different  men :  or,  in  other  words,  that  we  say, 
phenomenally,  a  thing  is,  if  we  are  fully  persuaded  that,  if  we 
act  in  reference  to  it,  such  and  such  results  will  follow,  and  also 
that  we  say  it  is,  if  we  are  persuaded  that,  though  perhaps  we 
only  see  it,  yet  if  we  could  get  to  it,  we  could  handle  it,  and 
though  perhaps  nobody  sees  it  but  we,  yet  if  another  person 
were  present,  he  would  see  it  as  well  as  we.  It  is  probable 
that  our  phenomenal  notion  of  existence  rests  upon  these  two 
persuasions.     I  call  them  two :  we  might,  if  we  pleased,  call 


them  one,  by  speaking  of  the  harmonizing  together  of  our 
active  powers,  our  sensive  powers,  and  our  various  individual 
experience.  Or,  no  doubt,  on  the  other  hand,  we  might  further 
analyze  and  divide  them. 

Lord  Bacon  s  \aew  as  to  the  relation  of  physical  knowledge 
to  utility  has  been  variously  discussed,  and  Lord  Macaulay  has 
described  him  as  in  a  great  measure  valuing  physical  know- 
ledge on  account  of  its  utility.  On  this  Mr  EUis  has  drawn 
attention  to  the  high  degree  in  which,  on  the  other  hand,  what 
Bacon  considered  was  that  applicability  to  practice  and  use 
was  a  test  of  the  reality  of  the  knowledge,  and  a  security 
against  its  being  merely  verbal  and  visionaiy.  In  that  ruling 
thought  of  his  mind,  that  knowledge  ought  not  to  be  sterile, 
but  fruitful.  Bacon  had,  as  much  that  he  says  and  his  whole 
temper  show,  most  deeply  at  heart  the  utility  of  which  it  might 
be  to  man,  but  also  strongly  the  thought,  that  unless  knowledge 
was  tested  by  being  acted  upon  we  could  have  but  little  cer- 
tainty of  its  life  and  reality. 

I  will  not  dwell  upon  these  tests:  but  having  said  so  much 
of  the  one,  will  just  say  this  of  the  other.  By  illusion  as  dis- 
tinguished from  reality  we  mean  what,  given  us  as  apparent 
fact  by  one  sensive  power,  will  not  stand  the  test  of  others. 
Phenomenal  reality  is  the  resultant  arising  from  the  comparison 
together  of  the  information  (so  to  speak)  of  our  various  senses, 
or,  (so  to  speak  again),  our  various  means  of  communication  with 
the  external  world.  What  is  not  true  for  all  of  these,  so  far  as 
they  can  be  brought  into  comparison,  is  not  phenomenally  true 
at  all.  So  far  as  what  any  one  sensive  power  presents  to  us  as 
true  cannot,  in  any  of  its  circumstances,  accompaniments,  or 
effects,  be  tested  by  another  such  power,  we  cannot  be  cer- 
tain that  it  is  not  illusion.  And  we  only  suppose  it,  even 
for  the  moment,  to  be  reality,  on  account  of  our  experience 
that  what  that  sense  has  presented  to  us  has  hitherto  been  in 
harmony  with  the  others*. 

^  If  anything  'is'  (phenomenally)  it  belongs  somehow  to  all  the  body.  Want 
of  notice,  however,  wiU  not  make  it  illusion- there  must  be  contradiction.  And 
80  far  as  there  is  any  communication,  there  is  reality  of  some  sort.  But  where 
there  is  communication  only  of  one  kind  there  cannot  be  description  of,  or  cha- 
racter in,  the  reality— there  is  then  no  test  whether  there  is  illusion  or  not. 


14 


PHENOMENALISM. 


[chap. 


Having  spoken   of  the  phenomenal  test   of  truth,   I  will 
speak  a  word  on  the  phenomenalist  mind  or  spirit.    I  am  going, 
after  this,  to  do  the  best  I  can  to  show  the  actual  way  in  which 
•  we  come  to  know  what  we  do  know,  and  to  examine  knowledge 
itself  instead  of  the  (supposed)  matter  of  knowledge,  which  is 
one  part  of  the  whole  abstracted  from  the  rest.     By  the  pheno- 
menalist mind  or  spirit  I  mean  a  manner  of  knowing  or  thinking 
which  we  never  have  originally,  but  which,  in  the  advance  of 
knowledge  and  growth  of  our  mind,  we  are  very  likely  to  have, 
sometimes  holding  it  with  that  due  qualification  and  regard  for 
other  possible  (extra-phenomenal)  knowledge  which,  in  my  view, 
is  the  right  state  of  our  mind,  sometimes  holding  it  as  what  we 
ought  to  hold  exclusively,  and  to  the  destruction  of  all  possi- 
bilities of  truth  beyond  it  or  outside  of  it  (this  is  what,  in  the 
physical  application  of  the  term,  I  should  mean  by  'positivism'), 
sometimes  feeling  ourselves  disposed  to  fall  into  it  without  con- 
sidering, nevertheless,  that  we  oi^ht  to  hold  it  (at  least  exclu- 
sively), in  fact  being  in  difficulty  of  mind  about  it. 

I  think  the  best  way  of  our  conceiving  this  phenomenalist 
spirit,  carefully  avoiding,  in  our  intellectual  conception  of  it, 
any  moral  approbation  or  disapprobation,  is  to   conceive   what 
exists  existing  without  being  known   (I  can  hardly  say  con- 
ceived when  we  are  ourselves  supposed  conceiving  it,  so  entirely 
is  what  we  are  supposing  now  what  I  have  called  an  abstrac- 
tion) by  any  one :  without  any  mind,  or  anything  like  mind, 
having  originated  it  or  having  been  concerned  with  its  origina- 
tion or  arrangement,  so  that  when  we  find  in  it  anything  which 
we  should  describe  as  order,  or  form,  or  composition,  it  is  not 
that  kind  of  order,  or  anything  like  it,  which  we  mean  when 
we  speak  of  putting  together  anything  ourselves  with  a  meaning 
and   a  reason.     The  phenomenalist   maxim   must  be,  to   put 
nothing  (mentally)  in  the  universe  beyond  what  we  find  there ; 
and  what  we  find  there,  phenomenally,  is  that,  and  nothing 
more,  which  communicates  with  the  various  natural  elements, 
nervous  matter,  &c.  of  which  our  bodies  are  composed.      We 
really,  phenomenally,  have  no   right   to   speak   of  order,    ar- 
rangement, composition,  &c.  in  the   universe,    all    which  are 
ideas  belonging  to  our  own  consciousness  of  active  and  con- 
structive powers.     The  great  rule  of  phenomenalism  is  to  be 


I.] 


PHENOMENALISM. 


15 


sure  that  we  do  not  do  that  which,  as  we  shall  see,  we  always 
naturally  do  do,  humanize  the  universe,  recognize  intelligence 
in  it,  have  any  preliminary  faith,  persuasion,  suppositions  about 
it,  find  ourselves,  if  I  may  so  speak,  at  all  at  home  in  it,  think 
it  has  any  concern  with  us. 

To  me  there  is  something  in  the  simply  phenomenalist  spirit, 
so  far  as  one  has  a  tendency  to  sink  (as  I  should  say)  into  it, 
inexpressibly  depressing  and  desolate.  We  are  supposed  to  wake, 
not  into  a  world  (for  even  a  world  or  universe  is  something  for 
the  imagination  to  lay  hold  of,  a  unity,  a  something  added  to 
what  we  wake  into  from  ourselves)  but  into  circumstances  to 
which  we  ourselves  are  accidental,  and  our  knowing  which  or 
knowing  anything  as  to  which,  is  quite  an  accident  in  regard 
to  them:  as  if  we  were  thrown  on  an  uninhabited  island  where 
everything,  in  a  manner  which  to  our  actual  human  experience 
is  impossible,  was  strange  and  out  of  relation  to  us.  And  as  we 
go  on  in  our  island,  in  this  view,  the  state  of  things  does  not 
alter.  Without  the  links  to  bind  them  together  which  our 
mind  must  supply,  one  thing  is  as  strange  to  another  as  each 
thing  is  to  us— though  here  I  am  using  wrong  language,  as  it  is 
impossible  to  avoid  doing,  for  unless  our  mind  proceeded  other- 
wise than  phenomenally  at  first  there  would  not  be  even  things 
to  us;  we  should  separate  and  distinguish  nothing.  The  pro- 
gress of  knowledge,  so  far  as  we  can  be  true  to  this  manner 
of  thought,  is  the  passing  on  unmeaningly,  we  might  almost  say 
the  falling  helplessly,  from  one  view  to  a  fresh  one  in  a  course 
which  is  not  advance  towards  an  end  but  the  getting  further 
and  further  into  a  hopeless  infinity. 

I  am  aware  that  it  will  be  said  that  this  is  not  at  all  the 
phenomenalist  or  even  the  positivist  view,  but  that  what  we 
do  is  to  mount  up  from  particular  facts  to  general  laws,  and 
to  trace  again  the  working  of  the  general  laws  in  the  particular 
facts,  and  that  in  all  this  there  is  or  may  be  (as  is  most  true) 
both  intense  intellectual  pleasure  and  high  moral  elevation. 
But  what  do  we  mean  by  'laws'?  Why  do  we  thus  take 
pleasure,  and  find  our  minds  exalted,  in  the  seeing  in  the 
universe  these  uniformities,  and  recurrences,  and  order  ?  It  is 
because  we  recognize  a  likeness  to  what  we  should  do  ourselves, 
and  do  do,  that  is,  we  trace  mind,  and  here  we  are  going  quite 


fdU^ 


16 


PHENOMENALISM. 


[chap.  I. 


beyond  the  phenomena.  When  we  view  things  in  this  way, 
knowledge  is  not  accidental  to  the  universe,  or  to  fact,  but  so 
far  as  either  is  to  be  postponed  to  the  other,  the  universe  is 
accidental  to  knowledge,  and  one  out  of  various  possible  results 
or  expressions  of  it.  And  so  far  therefore  as  we  come  to  know 
fact  or  the  universe,  we  are  brought  into  relation  with  the 
knowledge  of  which  it  is  a  result  and  an  example.  This  is 
what  I  meant  by  our  feeling  ourselves,  as  to  knowledge,  at 
home  in  the  universe.  And  this  is  something  quite  beside 
phenomenalism. 


CHAPTER   II. 

PHILOSOPHY    AND    CONSCIOUSNESS. 

But  I  must  not  dwell  longer  on  this,  and  must  proceed,  as 
well  as  I  can,  to  exhibit  the  philosophical  or  more   general 
view.    In  using  the  term  philosophical,  I  am  speaking  quite 
without  reference  to  any  comparative    superiority:    I   mean 
simply  the  view  which  belongs,  not  to  physical  research  but  to 
philosophy  or  the  higher  logic,  and  which  in  some  respects, 
as  we  shall  see,  resembles,  in  its  distinction  from  phenomenal- 
ism, the  popular  or  ordinary  view  which  appears  in  language. 
^      I  am  not  quite  certain  whether,  when  I  say  'the  philo- 
sophical or  more  general  view',  the  language  is  correct.     If  we 
consider  simply  the  process  of  knowing,  or  ask  ourselves  what 
knowledge  is,  without  any  reference  to  any  thing  being  known, 
we  have  again  what,  in  respect  of  the  whole  fact,  is  an  abs- 
traction, in  the  same  way  in  which,  on  its  side,  phenomenalism 
is  so.     If  we  consider  that  we  have  general  faculties  of  knowing 
(which  are  the  subject  of  our  investigation),  with  which,  so  far 
as  we  can  tell,we  might  know  any  thing,  and  that  what  we  hap- 
pen to  come  to  know  is  the  facts  of  the  universe,  we  have  the 
counterpart  abstraction  to  phenomenalism ;  in  which  latter  we  as- 
sume the  existence,  as  matter  of  fact,  of  the  several  parts  of  the 
universe,  which  happen  to  become  the  objects  of  intelligence 
perceiving  and  knowing  them.    To  keep  this  consideration  of 
knowledge  quite  in  its  character  of  an  abstraction,  I  think  will 
not  lead  to  useful  result.     Nor  are  the  two  counterpart  abstrac- 
tions altogether  similarly  circumstanced.    After  we  have  learned, 
to  forget  all  about  the  manner  and  meaning  of  our  learning, 
and  lose  ourselves  in  what  we  have  learned,  which  is  in  sub- 
stance phenomenalism,  is,  whatever  may  be  wrong  in  it,  a 


»-^- 


18 


PHILOSOPHY   AND   CONSCIOUSNESS. 


[chap. 


more  interesting  and  promising  course  than  to  study  exclusively 
the  nature  of  our  instrument  or  power  without  reference  to  its 
application  or  the  results  which  it  has  produced.  If  I  mistake 
not,  the  suggesting  or  ground  thought  of  Kant's  Critique  of 
the  Pure  Reason  is,  bearing  in  mind  the  analogy  with  Pure  and 
Applied  Mathematics,  to  disengage  the  action  of  intelligence 
from  all  application  and  actual  use  of  it,  and  to  see  what  it  is 
in  itself,  previously  to  its  being  applied  in  such  a  way  as  to 
generate  particular  knowledge.  I  rather  question  myself  whether 
we  can  abstract  to  such  an  extent  as  to  make  investigation 
of  this  kind  really  fruitful,  or  exhibit  the  primary  and  most 
important  acts  of  the  mind  in  this  way  as  a  kind  of  calculus, 
from  the  application  of  which  to  the  unknown,  or  to  the  un- 
informed, unmeasured,  chaotic  matter  of  knowledge,  knowledge 
will  proceed. 

In  place  of  any  process  so  abstract  as  this,  I  shall  simply 
start  from  our  consciousness,  and  endeavour  to  follow  it  as  we 
advance  in  knowledge:  I  shall  dismiss  from  my  thoughts  all 
previous  supposition  of  there  being  anything  to  be  known,  or  of 
there  being  a  phenomenal  world  to  make  itself  known  to  us — 
that  is  a  thing  which,  so  far  as  we  are  concerned  with  it  at  the 
outset  of  this  investigation,  may  turn  out  to  be  so,  or  may  not : 
just  as,  in  what  I  have  said  about  phenomenalism,  the  pheno- 
menal world  is  what  it  is,  whether  we  or  anybody  else  know  it 
and  perceive  it,  or  whether  we  do  not.  In  speaking  about  phe- 
nomenalism, I  described  the  extent  to  which  sensation  was  a 
phenomenon,  or  fact  of  the  phenomenal  world,  which  could  be 
physically  reasoned  about,  and  I  described  the  application  of  the 
term  in  which  it  was  not  so — ^namely,  in  so  far  as  it  is  feeling;  for 
feeling  is  incommunicable ;  it  cannot  be  brought  into  the  common 
stock  of  knowledge  and  thought,  or  reasoned  about  phenomenally 
according  to  any  logic  which  we  know  of.  This  feeling  or  con- 
sciousness, excluded  from  phenomenalism,  I  now  assume  as  the 
one  thing  which  we  do  know  or  are  certain  of.  It  is  evident 
that  this  is  a  higher  and  a  more  intimate  certainty  to  us  than 
any  phenomenal  certainty.  Whether  anything  beyond  ourselves 
exists  or  not,  we  are  at  least  certain  that  we  feel,  %.  e.  that  feel- 
ing, pleasure  and  pain,  are  realities,  and  individual  to  what,  in 
virtue  of  this  feeling  or  consciousness,  we  call  ourselves :  and 


II.] 


PHILOSOPHY   AND   CONSCIOUSNESS. 


19 


I 


that  so  far  as  consciousness  is  a  proof  or  a  fit  suggestive  of  exist- 
ence, '  cogito  *  of  *  sum,*  we  ourselves  exist. 

The  *we'  or  *I'  of  consciousness  is  something  quite  different 
from  the  'we',  'I',  'man'  of  phenomenalism,  which,  as  I  said, 
is  a  portion  of  matter  organised  and  variously  endowed,  with 
phenomenal  sensation  {i,  e.  liability  to  affection  of  certain  por- 
tions of  it  in  a  particular  manner  by  natural  agents,  which  af- 
fection produces  various  results)  for  one  of  its  properties. 

I  described  some  time  since  the  entire  process  of  sensation 
on  the  hypothesis  of  the  existence  of  ourselves  on  the  one  side, 
and  on  the  other  objective  reality  or  an  objective  universe 
(phenomenally,  an  independent  external  world).  If  the  reader 
will  turn  back  to  that,  he  will  see  that  the  middle  point  of  the 
process  is  what  I  called  a  communication  between  certain  na- 
tural agents  and  certain  constituents  of  our  body,  and  pheno- 
menalism is  a  recognition  and  following  out  of  this  central  por- 
tion without  attention  to  the  extremes  We  have  now  on  the 
other  hand  to  dismiss  from  our  thoughts  this  central  portion, 
and  give  our  attention  to  the  communication  which,  by  the 
means  of  it,  takes  place  between  the  extremes.  Except  that  we 
do  not,  as  in  phenomenalism,  start  with  the  meeting  of  two 
things  of  the  same  nature.  '  We  perceive  things.*  But  'we*  and 
'  things  *  are  something  different. 

Let  us  imagine  to  ourselves  the  successive  changes  of  our 
feeling  as  our  consciousness  developes  itself. 

Still  however  I  will  make  one  preliminary  observation.  The 
reader  may  have  observed  that  I  have  generally  used  the 
expression  'sensive  powers*  where  most  writers  would  have 
spoken  of  'senses'.  An  instance  of  what  appears  to  me  the  con- 
fusion between  philosophy  or  logic  on  the  one  side,  and  physio- 
logy or  phenomenalism  on  the  other,  appears  in  the  manner  in 
which  the  whole  question  of  sensation  has  constantly  been 
treated.  'Sensation',  meaning  by  the  teim  an  affection  or  modi- 
fication (however  we  may  style  it)  of  our  senses  (to  use  that  mis- 
leading expression),  nerves,  and  brain,  is  a  phenomenon  belong- 
ing to  the  domain  of  physiology.  It  is  what  I  have  above  called 
'communication*.  'Sensation',  meaning  by  the  term  a  feeling 
on  our  part,  or  a  portion  or  instance  of  consciousness,  which,  in 
whatever  manner,  grows  into  knowledge,  is  a  fact,  so  far  as  we 

2—2 


I 


ti 


20 


PHILOSOPHY   AND    CONSCIOUSNESS. 


[chap. 


call  it  one,  belonging  to  a  different  order  of  thought,  and  it  is 
philosophy  or  logic  which  must  deal  with  it  so  far  as  it  can  be 

dealt  with. 

Our  whole  body  is  a  sense  to,  or,  if  we  prefer  the  expres- 
sion, the  sense  of,  our  intelligent  self,  which  latter  is  the  *  We' 

I*  of  consciousness,  and  the  subject  of  knowledge.     Every 


or 


communication  of  our  body  with  the  remainder  of  the  phe- 
nomenal world,  whether  it  be  towards  the  body  inwards  or 
from  the  body  outwards,  i  e.  whether  it  be  the  result  of  im- 
pression from  without  or  of  exertion  of  what  we  call  our  will 
from  within,  is,  I  conclude,  as  the  rule,  attended  with  feeling 
on  our  part,  and  this  feeling  is  sensation  as  feeling.  By  *  as 
the  rule*  I  mean  this:  that  latency  of  the  feeling  in  conse- 
quence of  rapid  passage  of  it  and  want  of  attention  to  it  must 
of  course  be  allowed  to  some  extent,  and  may  perhaps  be  so  to 
a  very  considerable  extent — this  is  a  question  which  I  cannot 
discuss  now.  This  sensation  or  feeling  is  of  course  a  very  main 
part  of  consciousness :  some  might  say  it  is  the  whole  of  it : 
and  that,  as  every  bodily  affection  is  accompanied  with  feeling, 
80  every  feeling  is  accompanied  with  some  bodily  or  organic 
modification  corresponding  with  it.  The  important  thing  is 
to  keep  in  mind  that  even  if  this  latter  is  the  case,  feeling  is 
not  the  less  feeling,  something  essentially  unbodily  and  imma- 
terial. The  only  real  immaterialism  seems  to  me  to  reside  in 
the  view  of  consciousness  as,  in  the  idea  of  it,  necessarily  dis- 
tinct from  any  bodily  or  phenomenal  modification,  and  those 
who  think,  with  regard  of  consciousness,  that  any  possible  phy- 
siological acuteness  or  discovery  can  ever  bring  consciousness 
or  feeling  under  what  we  call  now  the  laws  of  matter,  or  even 
perhaps  any  laws  at  all  resembling  them,  seem  to  me  to  be 
materialists  already,  subtle  perhaps,  but  really  so. 

Keeping  on  the  surface  of  physics,  into  which  I  do  not  wish 
to  go  deep,  we  may  say  that  the  different  affections  of  our  body, 
(which  are  phenomenal  sensation)  are  of  two  kinds,  chemical 
and  mechanical :  the  question  whether  the  chemical  ones  are 
only  mechanical  of  a  more  refined  kind,  I  do  not  discuss.  The 
chemical  constitution  of  bodies  affects,  under  certain  circum- 
stances, any  part  of  our  body  to  which  they  can  be  applied, 
and  where  there  can  be  communication :  but  there  is  more  par- 


«      « 


\  i 


II.] 


PHILOSOPHY   AND   CONSCIOUSNESS. 


21 


ticular  communication  between  certain  portions  of  that  consti- 
tution and  certain  particular  parts  of  our  body,  as  the  palate 
and  nostrils.  I  suppose  too  that  it  is  the  chemical  constitution 
of  bodies  which  determines  how  they  shall  be  affected  by  light, 
so  as  to  have  what  we  call  this  or  that  colour,  and  the  light 
then  transmitted  from  them  affects  in  a  manner  which  we  may 
for  convenience  call  chemical,  our  optic  nerve.  But  besides  this, 
bodies  applied  to  our  body  (or  to  which  parts  of  our  body  are 
applied)  affect  it  mechanically  or  displace  portions  of  it,  and 
here  there  comes  into  play  our  active  nature,  or  will :  our  body 
is  'a  sense'  to  our  conscious  self  in  a  double  manner,  first  in  so 
far  as  it  is  affected  in  the  manner  which  I  have  described,  and 
next  in  so  far  as  it  is  not  only  a  frame,  vessel,  focus,  for  recep- 
tion, but  also  a  machine  for  action,  its  different  portions  move- 
able at  our  will,  and  this  movement  of  them,  as  movement  by 
U8,  being  of  course  accompanied  with  our  -being  aware  of  the 
movement,  and  of  the  amount  of  it;  by  our,  in  feeling,  mm- 
suring  it.  Hence  we  move  our  limbs,  aware,  as  we  do  so,  how 
much  pressure  we  exert  and  how  much  of  force  producing 
change  of  position :  hence  we  move  the  muscles  of  our  eyes 
with  more  or  less  motion,  and  measure,  as  well  as  chemically 
feel,  what  is  (phenomenally)  before  them. 

To  the  philosopher,  then,  as  I  have  said,  the  body  is  all  one 
sense ;  it  is  the  glass  through  which  the  intelligence  looks  out 
into  the  phenomenal  world.  To  the  physiologist,  it  is  sensive 
or  possessed  of  sensation  {his  sensation)  altogether,  but  pos- 
sessing withal  what  he  would  call  various  special  organs  of  sen- 
sation for  particular  purposes  and  adapted  to  particular  natural 
agents,  of  which  perhaps  the  chief  is  the  eye.  But  the  attempt 
to  particularize  and  enumerate  our  senses,  as  things  or  unities, 
when  under  the  term  are  included  notions  so  incommensurable 
as  that  of  the  eye  and  what  is  commonly  called  the  touch, 
seems  unprofitable. 

As  I  have  alluded  here  to  the  eye  and  the  touch,  I  will 
make  one  more  observation  preliminary  to  the  philosophical  view 
of  knowledge  which  I  am  going  to  try  to  give.  One  most  fruit- 
ful source  of  the  confusion  between  philosophy  and  phenome- 
nalism is  the  treatment  of  the  eye  as  the  main  sense,  without 
thought  of  the  complicatedness  of  the  information  which  it  gives 


-'^imt' 


22 


PHILOSOPHY   AND  CONSCIOUSNESS. 


[chap. 


/ 


to  US.  In  reality,  philosophers  who  have  treated  about  our 
notion  of  space  seem  universally  to  me  to  have  in  their  minds 
lighted  space,  which  really,  whenever  we  look  towards  it  with- 
out a  distinct  object  terminating  it,  is  something  which  we 
imagine  we  see  (not  see  through) y  i.  e.  is  matter  to  us.  In  the 
reasoning  about  geometrical  figures,  it  seems  to  me,  and  I  hope 
to  show  it,  that  this  error  has  largely  entered  in.  And  it  has 
worked  far  more  deeply  than  this.  Few  philosophers  seem  to 
have  guarded  themselves  sufficiently  against  the  danger  of  error 
which  lies  in  words  involving  so  much  metaphor  as  *  intuition  * 
and  other  words  suggested  by  light  and  sight. 

But  to  return. 

Let  us  examine  our  consciousness  or  sensation  as  feeling 
without  dny  thought,  at  the  present,  that  it  is  other  than  feel- 
ing. Let  us  try  to  follow  back  as  well  as  we  can,  the  stream  of 
our  knowledge.  Let  us  try  to  examine  knowledge  as  it  is  in 
the  subject,  abstracting  and  separating  this,  to  a  certain  extent, 
as  I  have  said,  but  only  to  a  certain  extent,  from  consideration  of 
the  object.  This  is  the  companion-process  to  what  we  did  in 
regard  of  phenomenalism,  when  we  endeavoured  to  attend  to 
the  matter  or  object  of  knowledge  without  thought  of  its  being 
known. 

I  do  not  think  that  it  can  be  doubted  that  the  first  and 
original  consciousness  (to  keep  that  word  still  for  a  moment)  ia 
double:  that  is,  that  we  no  more,  and  no  sooner,  feel  ourselves  to 
exist  than  we  feel  something  to  exist  besides  ourselves.  When 
we  virtually  say  in  our  minds,  *Cogito,  ergo  sum',  whatever 
force  there  may  be  in  the  '  ergo  * — that  is,  when  we  look  at  con- 
sciousness as,  what  it  undoubtedly  is,  an  assertion  to  ourselves 
of  our  own  existence,  it  being  really  the  only  assertion  we  ever 
do  make  of  that,  the  only  meaning,  at  bottom,  of  our  belief  in 
it — ^the  one  thing  which  distinguishes  the  notion  (if  we  may 
speak  of  notions  in  this  very  seminal  and  embryotic  state  of 
consciousness)  *be'  from  that  of  'feel'  is  that  by  'be'  we 
mean  something  which  something  else  may  share  with  us,  by 
*  feel  *  we  mean  something  which  something  else  can  have  like 
us,  but  cannot  share  with  us.  In  this  way  the  separation  of  the 
notion  of  personality  or  individuality  from  that  of  being  is 
coeval  with  the  first  consciousness.    The  matter  may  be  best 


11.] 


pmiiOeoPHy  4^d  consciousness. 


23 


understood  thus :  if  we,  any  of  us,  were  the  solitary  existence, 
the  simple  monad,  of  the  universe,  though  the  notion  of  feeling 
or  individuality  would  exist  in  us,  I  do  not  think  that  of  exist- 
ence would — ^we  feel  for  ourselves,  but  we  are  not  for  and  by 
ourselves,  we  are  something;  that  is,  in  other  words,  in  the 
notion  he  there  is  something  quasi-generic,  and  it  implies  al- 
ready a  state  of  things,  an  universe.  / 

I  do  not  however  mean  to  dwell  on  anything  so  abstract 
as  this— it  is  more  important  to  think,  whether  the  words 
'consciousness',  'to  feel',  are  rightly  applied  to  this  initiatory 
knowledge  of  the  non  ego,  or  something  besides  ourselves.  (We 
must  keep  in  mind  of  course  that  the  object  of  the  verb  'feel* 
here  is  to  be  understood  after  the  analogy  of  '  I  feel  pleasure, 
pain,  &c.',  not  *  I  feel  this  table  or  this  chair',  which  belongs  to 
another  order  of  ideas.)  Is  it  then  correct  to  say,  we  are  con- 
scious of,  we  feel,  what  is  not  ourselves  ?  Does  it,  or  does  it 
not,  violate  the  idea  of  consciousness,  which  is  certainly  re- 
flective, and  the  idea  of  feeling,  *  which  is  certainly  indi- 
vidual ? 

I  shall  have  to  discuss  at  some  length  the  manner  in  which 
philosophers  have  applied  the  term  'consciousness'  to  our  notion 
of  something  beyond  ourselves,  and  the  manner  in  which  some 
of  them,  especiaUy  Sir  WiUiam  HamHton,  have,  in  my  view,  mis- 
applied it  in  doing  so.  I  shall  have  to  compare  it  with  '  common 
sense',  'original  beliefs',  and  other  expressions  which  have  been 
used  in  a  similar  application.  The  important  faxjt  is  that  even  our 
rudimentary  consciousness,  so  far  as  it  is  intellectual,  i.e.  a  seed 
of  intellectual  development,  is  a  distinguishing  ourselves  from 
something :  even  this  earliest  of  notions  is  not  single,  but  has 
its  counter-notion.  We  are  bom,  intellectually,  into  a  state  of 
things,  an  universe :  and  here  it  is,  at  the  very  root,  that  lies 
the  difference  between  the  philosophical  and  the  simply  phe- 
nomenalist  view.  It  is  not  really  correct  to  say,  as  an  ultimate 
fact  which  cannot  and  need  not  be  accounted  for,  that  we 
refer  our  first  feelings  of  pleasure  and  pain  (or  some  of  them) 
to  a  cause  independent  of  us,  for.the  distinction  begins  earlier 
than  this,  and  as  early  as  we  have  the  consciousness  which 
answers  to  the  language  'our  feeUngs'  we  have  the  idea  of  an 
imiverse,  large  or  small,  of  which  we  ar^  a  part.  I 


n 


>-*  VI.-  '••Sr 


24 


PHILOSOPHY  AND  CONSCIOUSNESS. 


[chap. 


All  our  after  knowledge  is  contained  seminally  in  this  first 
particular  of  it,  and  our  progress  in  knowledge  consists  in  the 
gradual  making  acquaintance  with  that  which  is  thus  revealed 

to  us. 

And  not  only  this,  but  our  after  knowledge  still  preserves 
in  one  step  after  another  the  same  character  of  distinction :  and 
the  great  mass  of  notions  are  not  distinct  to  us  or  properly 
held  unless  so  far  as  we  give  attention  also  to  their  counter- 
notion  or  ground,  that  from  which  they  are  a  distinction. 

A  progress  of  knowledge  of  this  description  has  of  necessity 
various  other  particular  characters. 

One  is,  that  it  is  perpetual  self-correction :  it  proceeds  as 
it  were  by  hitches,  and  every  step  in  it  together  with  truth 
contains  error,  which  the  next  or  an  after  step  corrects. 

Another  is,  that  every  step  in  it  suggests  to  the  mind 
a  fresh  crop  of  possibilities,  with  which  the  imagination  em- 
ploys itself:  its  employment  in  this  manner  is  the  means  by 
which  the  notion  involved  in  the  last  step  is  familiarized  to  the 
mind :  and  the  next  or  an  after  step  determines  among  these 
possibilities  which  is  the  truth. 

In  various  ways  like  these  it  is  that  the  dim  universe 
which  is  the  ground  or  counter-notion  of  primitive  conscious- 
ness, the  reality  or  state  of  things  in  which,  so  soon  as  we 
understand  anything,  we  understand  ourselves  as  existing,  takes 
form  and  fulness  and  particularity :  I  will  trace  some  of  the 
particulars. 

The  consciousness  or  feeling  from  the  first  is  various  in 
kind.  Certain  forms  of  it,  not  many,  have  been  particularized 
and  named  in  language.  All  consciousness  however  is,  loosely 
speaking,  pleasurable  or  painful :  it  is  feeling  of  pleasure  or 
feeling  of  pain.  Of  its  more  complicated  forms,  the  principal 
is  desire:  and  this  forms  the  link  between  our  sensive  nature 
and  another  part  of  our  entire  nature  closely  joined  with  it, 
our  volitional  or  active  nature.  Our  feelings  of  pleasure  and 
pain,  and  the  consequent  various  exertion  of  our  will,  with  the 
accompanying  feeling  that  we  are  so  exerting  it,  run  closely 
together. 

There  is  one  element  or  particular,  and  one  only,  entirely 
common  to  the  world  of  feeling  and  the  world  of  phenomenal 


^ 

^ 


^1 


II.] 


PHILOSOPHY   AND   CONSCIOXTSNESS. 


25 


fact,  and  that  is,  duration  or  time,  with  its  circumstance,  repeti- 
tion, which  it  always  involves  to  some  extent.  Our  feelings  have 
nothing  else  entirely  in  common  with  the  parts  of  the  phe- 
nomenal world,  except  that  they  last  for  a  certain  length  of 
time.  If  we  like  so  to  express  it,  the  duration  of  our  feelings 
reveals  to  us  or  gives  to  us  time :  or  what  we  call  time  is  some- 
thing, otherwise  unknown  to  us,  which  is  testified  of  to  us  by 
the  duration  of  our  feelings. 

Perhaps  it  is  as  well  to  take  the  occasion  of  this  first  of 
our  notions  to  explain  what  seems  to  me  to  be  the  proper 
relation  to  each  other  of  the  expressions  'sensation*  (meaning 
the  feeling)  and  *  idea.* 

We  feel  time,  or  are  conscious  of  its  passage,  in  the  manner 
which  I  have  just  described.  That  is,  we  have  a  sensation 
of  it,  in  the  way  in  which  we  are  now  using  that  word :  and 
if  we  did  not  have  such  a  sensation  of  it,  it  would  be  to  us 
and  we  should  be  as  though  it  were.  not.  I  said  however  also, 
it  is  otherwise  unknown  to  us :  that  is,  though  we  really  can  get 
no  further  than  the  sensation,  yet  still  we  do  not  rest  in  the 
sensation  :  we  consider,  believe,  understand,  that  there  is  some- 
thing more  in  the  case  than  that  we  feel :  we  ask,  what  is  this 
which  belongs  to  all  our  feelings?  and  answer,  it  is  time:  we 
have  made  a  step  in  knowledge,  such  a  step  as  I  have  above 
described :  we  have  the  idea^  of  time :  we  grasp  by  sensation 
the  end  of  something  which  we  then  mark  by  a  name  and 
set  ourselves  to  think  about,  and  as  our  knowledge  grows,  we 
find  out  about  it  more  and  more. 

It  will  be  best  however  to  speak  further  of  this  when  we 
have  more  sensations  and  ideas  to  illustrate  it  by. 

Time,  I  said,  is  entirely  common  to  the  world  jof  feeling  and 
the  world  of  phenomena :  space  is  partially  so,  and  the  reason 
of  this  partial  community  is  our  possession  of  a  body  or  bodily 
organization.  That  is,  not  only  do  we,  considered  philosophi-1 
caUy  and  widely,  feel  and  think,  but  we,  considered  phenome- 
nally, occupy  a  portion  of  space,  or,  in  a  certain  way,  our  feeling 
is  diffused  over  space,  is  local,  having  of  course  then  this  being 
local  in  common  with  phenomenal  existences.  Only  that  this 
localized  feeling,  or  feeling  phenomenally  viewed,  is  not  what 
we  analyse  in  consciousness.  ' 


•> .— r.-- 


26 


PHILOSOPHT   ANP   CONSCIOUSNESS.  [OHAP. 


II.] 


PHILOSOPHY  AND   C0N8CI0USNESS. 


27 


By  saying  here  *in  a  certain  way*  I  mean  to  express  a  good 
deal  of  possible  qualification,  because  I  do  not  want  to  enter 
into  the  question  of  the  real  relation  of  feeling,  as  local,  to 
parts  of  our  body.  It  is  sufficient  that  our  corporeal  organiza- 
tion introduces  our  feeling  into  phenomenal  space  (which  I 
defined  as  the  continent  of  matter),  not  indeed  thereby  making 
it,  as  feeling,  a  phenomenal  fact,  which  it  cannot  be,  but  bring- 
ing it  into  a  relation  with  phenomenalism,  which,  as  we  go  on, 
we  shall  do  our  best  (it  is  questionable  whether  much  can  any- 
how be  done)  to  make  clearer. 

Phenomenalism,  though  feeling  is  thus  introduced  to  it  and 
brought  into  relation  with  it,  can  never,  from  the  nature  of  the 
two  things,  absorb  it :  nor  can  any  extension  of  physiology 
make  feeling  a  phenomenal  fact,  so  as  to  give  us  an  account  of 
it  in  terms  of  matter,  force,  and  the  other  elements  which  make 
^phenomenalism.  When  we  make  phenomenalism  our  basis  of 
reality,  feeling,  though  we  may  know  it  to  exist,  must  exist  as 
something  alien,  unique,  and  insoluble,  so  that  we  are  driven 
then  to  a  dualism,  or  to  the  admission  of  a  second  basis  of  a 
reality  of  a  different  kind  from  the  first  which  we  supposed. 
So  far  as  we  make  feeling  or  consciousness  our  basis  of  reality, 
which  is  what  we  are  doing  now,  the  way  in  which  this  fact, 
which  we  should  phenomenally  describe  as  that  our  feeling  is 
diffused,  through  our  being  corporeal,  over  a  portion  of  space, 
presents  itself,  is  the  following.  We  feel  as  what,  so  far  as  we 
feel  it,  is  entirely  individual  to  us  and  what  nothing  else  is 
concerned  with,  the  duration  of  our  feelings,  or  time.  We  feel 
also  the  amount  of  effort  which  we  make  in  the  exertion  of  our 
will :  but  with  regard  to  a  portion  of  this  effort,  we  feel  that 
though  we  make  it,  we  are  not  all  that  is  concerned  with  it, 
that  there  is  resistance,  that  we  move  something,  that  our  effort 
shows  something  beyond  itself  answering  and  measuring  it. 
What  we  thus  feel  we  call  'space'  and  'matter',  'space',  so  far 
as  our  effort  meets  with  no  other  resistance  than  such  as  is  in- 
volved in  its  being  effort  at  all  (I  mean,  than  such  as  I  suppose 
would  be  mechanically  described  as  the  inertia  of  the  parts  of 
our  own  body),  'matter',  so  far  as  it  does  meet  with  resistance 
beyond  this :  in  the  former  case,  the  amount  of  motion  mea- 
sures and  feels  to  tiS  oris  feJt  by  up  as  space,  in  the  latter  case 


the  amount  of  resistance  measures,  feels  to  us,  is  felt  by  us  as, 
the  solidity  of  matter.  / 

I  must  apologize  to  those  who  have  clearer  mechanical  ideas 
than  I  have  for  any  mechanical  misdescription  which  there  may 
be  in  this  :  here,  as  in  former  cases,  I  want  to  avoid  going  into 
detail  to  which  I  am  incompetent,  and  I  think  that  the  sub- 
stantial truth  of  what  I  say  is  independent  of  any,  not  unlikely, 
mistake  as  to  that.  The  important  point  is,  that  we  feel  space, 
or  have  a  sensation  of  space,  as  much  as  we  can  be  said  to  have 
a  sensation  of  anything :  or  in  other  words,  that  the  definition 
of  space,  in  our  present  line  of  consideration,  is  that  which  we 
feel  when  we  move,  or  are  moving  portions  of  our  body  without 
meeting  any  resistance.  (I  say  when  we  '  are  moving'  in  dis- 
tinction from  when  *we  begin  to  move',  in  which  latter  case  it 
may  be  said  that  the  definition  would  apply  properly  to  the 
inertia  of  our  body.)  Still  without  entering  into  detail,  though 
a  portion  of  what  we  feel  may  be  paid  to  be  the  inertia  of  the 
parts  of  our  body,  or  resistance  in  this  view,  a  portion  is  the 
distance  moved  through,  or  space. 

Time  we  feel  without  going  beyond  our  feeling,  conscious 
or  necessary  selves ;  space  we  feel  without  going  beyond  our 
phenomenal  or  corporeal  selves,  our  bodies.  Our  feeling  of 
space  indeed  involves  to  us  matter  (which  time  does  not),  the 
matter  which  makes  our  bodies.  But  it  does  not  involve,  or 
suggest  to  us,  any  matter  beyond  our  corporeal  selves  (though 
the  notion  of  these  latter  may  itself  do  so).  i 

As  of  time,  so  of  space,  we  have  a  sensation,  and  form  coi 
idea :  that  is,  we  do  not  rest  in  our  sensation,  but  instantly  ima- 
gine that  what  we  have  thus  some  slight  hold  of  is  a  great  deal 
more  than  what  we  feel;  and  what  we  thus  imagine  behind  the 
sensation  is  the  supposed  thing,  the  idea  of  the  thing.  On  this 
I  will  speak  again  in  a  moment.  What  gives  time  and  space 
the  prerogative  over  all  our  other  and  later  sensations  and 
ideas,  is  that  which  I  mentioned  in  the  last  paragraph,  the  fact 
that  we  feel  them  without  going  beyond  ourselves. 

I  do  not  know  that  it  is  more  than  a  difference  of  expres-  ^ 
sion,  whether  we  say  that  we  feel  (i.  e,  have  a  sensation  of) 
time  and  space,  or  whether  we  say  that  it  is  in  time  that  we. 
feel  pur  conscious  selves,  and  in  space  that  w©  feel  (so  far  ^  we 


p 


I  fln'rrmi'iiiiri 


28 


PHILOSOPHY  AND  CONSCIOUSNESS. 


[chap. 


II.1 


PHILOSOPHY   AND   CONSCIOUSNESS. 


29 


k 


feel)  our  corporeal  selves.  I  have  used  the  former  way  of  ex- 
pression for  two  reasons :  one,  because  I  do  not  see  how  the 
manner  of  our  sensation  of  space  and  time,  in  so  far  as  it  is 
sensation  in  the  sense  of  feeling,  differs  from  the  manner  of  our 
sensation  of  anything  else:  the  other,  because  there  is  some 
danger  of  our  language  misleading  us  when  we  speak  of  *in 
time',  and  'in  space*.  When  we  call  time  and  space  conditions 
or  forms  of  our  sensation  (perception,  or  intelligence),  all  that 
this  seems  to  me  to  mean  is,  that  the  sensations  which  we  have 
of  them  stand,  in  a  logical  view,  in  a  relation  to  the  others  (as 
we  usually  reckon  them)  of  being  primary  and  fundamental ; 
they  enter  into  all  the  others,  our  sensation,  as  it  goes  on,  be- 
coming highly  complicated.  But  then  these  others  enter  one 
into  other,  and  some  of  them  are  more  fundamental  and,  we 
may  say,  primary  than  others;  and  though  the  sensations  of 
space  and  time  have  the  prerogative,  above  other  sensations, 
which  I  have  mentioned,  still  there  is  a  passage  through  them 
to  other  sensations,  and  it  is  graduated — there  is  a  sort  of 

\  scale.  The  sensation  of  space  is  lower,  if  we  like  to  call  it 
so,  than  that  of  time,  for  we  go  beyond  our  simply  conscious 
selves :  the  sensation  of  hardness  or  solidity,  that  is,  of  matter, 
(which  we  feel  by  the  way  of  pressure  and  resistance,  and  of 
which  I  have  already  spoken  slightly),  is  lower  than  that  of 
space,  for  here  we  go,  at  least  it  is  probable  that  we  go,  be- 
yond ourselves  altogether:  but  still  it  is  only,  in  a  manner, 
partly  beyond  ourselves,  for  we  may  feel  one  part  of  our  body 
by  another:  our  body  is,  contemporaneously,  external  to  us, 
and  yet  ourselves.  And  our  sense  of  solidity  or  of  matter 
(meaning  of  course  along  the  whole  scale  from  the  closest  con- 
sistency to  the  most  extreme  tenuity)  is  almost  as  fundamental 
to  our  sensation  as  those  of  time  and  space  themselves. 

'  I  have  already  alluded  to  the  mistakes  which,  to  me,  philo- 
sophers seem  to  have  made,  in  speaking  constantly  of  space  in 
its  association  with  the  complicated  sense  of  sight.  To  be  seen 
through  is  what  we  may  call  an  accident  of  space,  for  it  is  only 
in  consequence  of  the  existence  of  the  particular  material  agent, 
light,  and  the  corresponding  existence  in  us  of  the  complicated 
instrument  adapted  to  it,  the  eye,  that  this  is  possible.  But  to 
be  moved  through  is  not  an  accident  of  space;  it  is  what,  re- 


I 


¥■ 


moved,  space  would  not  be  space,  that  is,  it  is  a  part  of  what  we 
call  our  idea  of  space.     Is  it  not  better  therefore,  for  clearness ; 
and  accuracy,  so  far  as  possible,  to  speak  of  space  as  moved 
through,  rather  than  as  seen  ?  \ 

Without  entering  at  all  into  the  discussions  as  to  the  nature 
and  real  basis  of  geometrical  truth,  I  would  say  that  we  shall 
better  appreciate  them,  at  the  bottom,  by  abstracting  our  mind 
as  much  as  possible  from  the  figures  which  are  only  intended  to 
help  our  eye.     A  geometer's  straight  line,  as  I  understand  it,  is 
an  attempt  to  represent  to  the  eye  distance,  if  we  understand 
the  line  as  terminated  (according  to  the  Euclidic  definition),  or 
direction,  if  we  understand  it  as  indefinite.     These  are  the 
things  I  presume,  which  he  means.     And  distance  is,  in  our 
most  simple  and  earliest  understanding,  space,  as  we  feel  and 
measure  this  in  moving  our  hand  to  an  object,  or  from  one  ob- 
ject to  another:  vfhile  direction  is  the  same  so  far  as  we  suppose 
the  object  aimed  at,  but  not  attained.     It  is  very  likely  that  we 
do  not  move  our  hand  what  is  afterwards  called  straight,  but 
what  is  of  consequence  is  that  we  mean  to  do  it,  wish  to  do  it, 
think  probably  we  do  do  it :  in  such  a  way  as  this  it  is  that 
comes  in  the  idea  as  distinct  from  the  sensation :  we  may  be 
said  already  to  know  what  *  straight'  means,  since  we  are  aiming 
at  moving  our  hand  straight,  i.  e.  the  shortest  way  to  the  thing 
we  want,  or  across  the  intervening  distance.     I  have  described 
the  way  in  which  we  have  the  sensation  of  space,  and  have 
said  that,  concurrently  with  this  sensation,  we  form  an  idea  of 
space  :  in  other  words,  we  know  already  about  space  much  more 
than  is  involved  in  our  sensation :  we  know  that  there  is  a 
spatial  way  or  distance  to  the  thing  we  want  along  which  we 
shall  get  at  it  with  least  effort,  we  know,  that  is,  already  in  an 
action  what  straightness  is,  or  have  an  idea  of  straightness  as  a 
part  of  the  idea  of  space. 

We  should  not  take  the  trouble,  in  our  after  science,  to  define 
(geometrically)  what  we  in  the  definition  call  a  straight  line 
unless  the  definition  were  fruitful  in  consequences  applicable  to 
reality,  and  this  it  would  not  be  unless  it  either  represented  a  truth 
of  reality  itself,  or  were  very  closely  connected  with  one.  There 
is  therefore  no  meaning  in  speaking  of  a  science  of  importance 
as  merely  based  on  definitions.    Supposing  the  definition  of  a 


r 


f 


11 


so 


PHILOSOPHY  AND   CONSCIOUSNESS*  [CHAP. 


straight  line  to  represent  a  reality,  is  the  fact,  that  two  such 
lines  cannot  inclose  a  space,  that  is,  that  between  us  and 
something,  or  between  two  things,  the  distance  or  spatial  in- 
terval is  one,  a  thing  understood  by  us  as  a  necessary  truth, 
or  a  thing  found  out  by  us  in  the  course  of  experience  ? 

I  put  this  question  here  without  any  particular  intention  of 
trying  to  answer  it,  but  only  on  account  of  the  distinction,  real  or 
supposed,  between  necessary  truth  and  truth  of  experience  which 
it  illustrates,  and  which  distinction,  in  what  I  am  writing,  will 
recur  to  us  under  various  aspects. 

'  Whether  we  begin  with  knowing  nothing,  or  begin  with 
knowing,  confusedly  and  implicitly,  everything,  is  in  my  view  a 
question  much  more  of  description  and  of  the  notions  which  we 
start  with  about  knowledge,  than  of  fact  which  can  be  made  out 
by  observation  or  argument.  We  may  describe  knowledge  with 
equal  propriety  as  the  writing  characters  on  the  eK^ar^etov  (tabula 
rasa),  or  as  a  sort  of  chemical  process  like  fermentation,  crystal- 
lization, or  any  in  fact  in  which  something  previously  confused 
takes  new  form  and  arrangement  so  that  there  is  produced  from 
it  what  is  clear  and  definite.  The  description  of  knowledge  as 
a  course  of  experience  and  the  description  of  it  as  a  course  of 
analytic  and  self-correcting  judgments — as  what  many  would 
call  sensation,  or  as  reflection  in  this  view  of  reflection — are 
both  what  I  call  abstractions :  that  is,  the  historical  advance  of 
knowledge  is  the  continued  exercise  of  the  mind  in  judgment 
in  conjunction  with  the  continued  communication,  by  the  senses, 
with  phenomenal  fact ;  this  latter  being  the  continued  conscious- 
ness of  what  we  call  such  communication,  or  judgment  that 
there  is  such  :  knowledge  does  not  advance,  as  a  fact,  simply  by 
the  succession  of  our  experiences :  in  regard  of  these  we  are 
passive ;  it  advances  by  the  continual  exercise  of  our  will  and 
judgment,  not  loosely  and  vaguely,  but  in  conjunction  with 
the  consciousnesses  which  we  describe  as  such  experiences. 
Not  that  the  judgment  and  the  experience  can  be  separated, 
except,  as  I  have  described,  by  abstraction :  they  are  not  two 
parts  of  knowledge,  but  two  incomplete  views:  in  judgment,  for 
it  to  be  knowledge,  there  must  be  something  to  judge  or  be 
judged;  in  experience,  for  it  to  be  knowledge,  there  must  be 
notice  or  exercise  of  will.     I  hold  therefore  that  there  is  no  real 


\ 


It.] 


PHILOSOPHY   AND   CONSCIOUSNESS. 


31 


difference  between  truth  as  necessarily  known  and  truth  as 
known  by  experience :  all  truth  is  found  out :  the  question 
is,  what  is  it  that  is  found  out,  and  what  the  manner  of  the 
finding? 

We  go  on  continually  finding  out,  we  may  say,  two  things, 
though  really  they  are  but  one,  namely  the  bearing  of  the 
knowledge  which  we  have  already,  and  the  circumstances  of  our 
environment,  or  what  we  ponsider  such:  and  constantly,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  one  thing  may  come  to  our  knowledge  either 
way,  or  both,  one  confirming  the  other,  so  far  as  either  is  the 
better  for  confirmation.  The  thinker,  evolving  all  knowledge 
from  his  consciousness,  is  the  exact  pendant,  on  the  one  side 
of  our  knowledge,  to  the  inattentive  wanderer  on  the  other, 
brought  into  contact  with,  and  to  such  experience  of,  innume- 
rable phenomena,  and  noticing  nothing.  Consciousness,  abs- 
tracted from  attention  to  the  occasions  of  our  sensation,  is 
sterile  on  the  one  side,  as  unnoticed  communication  is  sterile  on 
the  other :  neither  is  knowledge.  But  each  interpretation  of  an 
occasion  of  sensation  is  full  of  bearing  in  all  possible  directions, 
if  we  prefer  rather  to  follow  out  these  bearings  than  to  proceed 
to  interpret  a  new  occasion  of  sensation.  The  difference  between 
necessary  and  experimental  truth  is  a  difference,  and  very  likely 
an  accidental  difference,  in  our  manner  of  arriving  at  truth,  and 
not  a  difference  in  truth  itself  And  the  urging  it  on  either  side 
as  if  anything  of  importance  depended  on  it  seems  to  me  to 
arise  from  a  misapprehension.  The  experiential  is  not  really, 
or  in  itself,  fragmentary  and  desultory,  though  the  effort  to 
make  its  bounds  appear  as  wide  as  possible  seems  generally  ac- 
companied with  a  peiTerse  pleasure  in  the  considering  it  such, 
and  though  the  same  notion  of  it  is  entertained  on  the  other 
side  with  opposite  feelings.  Its  appearing  so  is  an  accident,  not 
of  anything  that  can  be  properly  called  our  intelligence  or  our 
faculties  of  knowledge,  but  of  certain  circumstances  of  these, 
namely  our  sensive  powers  and  our  corporeal  frame.  Our  reason 
is  reason  of  all  intelligence,  but  our  sensive  communication  with 
the  universe  is  that  of  the  animal  man,  or  rather  we  might  say 
more  generally,  of  typical  terrestrial  animalhood,  for  eyes,  for 
instance,  or  communication  with  distant  bodies  by  means  of  light, 
belong  to  all  animals,  whereas  there  is  in  none  a  special  sensive 


32 


PHILOSOPHY  AND   CONSCIOUSNESS. 


[chap. 


II.] 


philosophy  and  consciousness. 


S3 


1. 


.   I 

f'  f 


!l 


.    1 


instrument  to  communicate  with  bodies  by  means  of  magnetism, 
or  various  other  agencies  as  real  as  light.  Our  knowledge  there- 
fore gained  by  experience  or  sense  is,  as  siich,  incoherent,  not  on 
i  account  of  anything  in  the  nature  of  the  things  known,  but  be- 
^  cause  our  powers  of  sensive  communication  do  not  constitute  a 
consistent  and  universal  physiometer,  so  to  call  it:  they  put  us 
into  communication  with  some  things,  leaving  what  we  under- 
stand to  be  gaps  and  can  partially,  but  partially  only,  fill  up, 
with  the  important  provision  however  that  we  have  from  the 
first  an  intelligence  or  reason  which  presents  to  us  the  universe 
as  a  whole,  a  frame  to  be  filled  up,  so  that  we  never  rest  satisfied 
with  the  incoherence. 

Our  sensive  power  for  space  is  all  the  variety  of  our  motor 
nerves,  or  in  fact  we  may  say  our  whole  body,  and  consequently 
our  sensation  of  it  is  full  and  intimate  to  a  degree  to  which 
some  of  our  sensive  powers  offer  no  sort  of  parallel.  And  in 
proportion  to  this  fullness  and  intimateness  is  the  less  doubt 
about  its  particular  informations,  and  the  less  need  of  repeated 
experience  for  the  testing  of  them.  I  find  it  hard  to  under- 
stand the  controversy,  whether  a  geometrical  axiom  (as  that 
two  straight  lines  cannot  enclose  a  space)  is  a  truth  necessary 
or  experiential,  in  this  way :  those  who  hold  the  latter  I  sup- 
pose do  not  mean  that  it  is  an  accident  of  space :  those  who 
hold  the  former  do  not  I  suppose  mean  that  we  could  have 
known  it  without  ever  having  moved  our  body,  or  had  space 
suggested  to  us :  the  questions  on  the  point  are  really  two : 
is  space  itself  suggested  to  us  by  experience?  and  can  space 
be  suggested  to  us  without  distance  and  the  singleness  of  dis- 
tance, being  so?  I  think  the  latter  must  be  answered  in  the 
negative:  the  question  then  is  as  to  the  general  nature  of 
space.  The  answer  which  I  give,  a  little  anticipating  what 
is  to  follow,  is  this :  that  meaning  or  purpose  in  a  thing 
(which  is  really  mind  or  intelligence  invested  or  deposited  in 
phenomena)  time,  space,  force,  light,  oxygen,  are  all  equally 
real  with  the  different  meanings  which  reality  must  take  in 
application  to  them,  all  equally  matters  of  experience  because 
they  are  what  we  successively  find  out,  but  all  parts  of  one 
universe  of  which  if  we  have  got  hold  of  any  portion  we  have 
got  some  hold  (little  or  much)  upon  the  whole,  a  piece  of  preg- 


:   *»' 


nant  and  developable  knowledge  already,  from  which  will  come 
truth  (such  as  it  may  be)  without  fresh  experience.  One  sen- 
sation of  space,  so  full  and  intimate,  is  almost  indefinitely  de- 
velopable— one  sensation  of  light,  communicating  only  with  the 
optic  nerve  and  retina,  may  carry  us  but  a  very  little  way  along 
the  road  of  knowledge  there. 

But  enough  of  this :  I  proceed  in  the  next  chapter,  in  con- 
tinuing the  subject  of  sensation,  to  the  sensation  of  power. 


8 


CHAPTER  III. 

SENSATION,  INTELLIGENCE,  AND  WILL. 

As  I  have  begun  to  speak  of  resistance  it  is  fit  that  I  should 
Botice  the  corresponding  and  companion  feeling  to  the  sensation 
of  it,  which  feeling  may  be  called  the  sensation  of  power. 

It  is  not  altogether  correct  to  say,  that,  in  its  nature,  desire, 
at  least  so  far  as  we  conceive  desire  to  be  the  result  of  expe- 
rienced pleasure  or  pain,  is  the  necessary  foundation,  parent, 
antecedent  of  volition,  and  in  this  way  to  subordinate  our  active 
nature  to  our  susceptible.  Impulse  to  action  or  rudimentary 
irritability  is,  I  should  think  we  may  consider,  something  as 
original  to  us  as  susceptibility  to  pleasure  and  pain,  and  the 
disposition  to  exert  will  exists  not  as  a  principle,  so  to  speak, 
intimate  and  necessary  to  us  in  the  second  degree  only — that 
is,  as  a  remedy  owing  to  our  being  subject  to  pain,  and  an 
aid  owing  to  our  being  capable  of  pleasure — but  as  something 
as  intimate  and  necessary  to  us  as  our  susceptibility  or  proper 
sensibility.  I  do  not  know  but  that  we  can  conceive  as  easily 
individualities  which  in  the  first  instance  can  act  only,  and  feel 
nothing  but  such  pleasure  as  is  taken  in  the  action,  as  indi- 
vidualities which  can  feel  only,  without  ability  to  act.  With 
us,  the  two  things  from  the  first  go  together. 

This  seems  to  me  an  important  thing  to  bear  in  mind.  Of 
its  application  to  Ethics  this  is  not  the  place  to  speak.  But  it  is 
of  importance  also  in  regard  of  the  distinction  which  I  am  at 
present  endeavouring  to  elucidate,  between  the  phenomenalist 
view  and  the  philosophical,  whether  this  latter  be  regarded  as 
a  wider  view  or  as  a  companion  abstraction.  The  phenomenalist 
view  considers  us  as  beings  (or  rather  as  something)  susceptible 
of  knowledge,  considers  knowledge  as  coming  to  us  (which  gives 
the  point  to  the  term  'sensation*  as  used  by  Locke  and  after- 
wards, by  most  philosophers  in  the  last  century),  considers  such 


CHAP.  III.]   -SENSATION,    INTELLIGENCE,    AND    WILL. 


35 


activity  as  there  is,  or  the  spring  of  movement,  to  reside  in  the 
supposed  object  of  knowledge,  so  that,  before  we  can  form  ideas 
(supposing  us  to  do  so)  we  must  have  received  impressions,  we 
must  have  been  somehow  affected  :  there  must  therefore  be  sup- 
posed in  the  object  of  knowledge,  in  matter  (for  instance)  some 
power,  or  activity  in  this  way  to  impress  and  affect  us,  and  it 
is  on  that  side  that  the  process  begins.  Hence  while  the  whole ' 
run  of  language,  evincing  the  human  natural  understanding,  is 
we  see,  we  hear,  we  perceive,  we  think,  the  language  of  the 
portion  of  philosophy  which  I  am  now  speaking  of  is,  that  ob- 
jects begin  and  impress  themselves  upon  our  sense,  and  that 
their  impressions,  transformed  or  modified  in  whatever  way, 
constitute  knowledge :  in  ruder  or  rougher  philosophy  of  the 
same  kind  they  have  been  supposed  to  send  forth  actual  ema- 
nations or  physical  images  which  did  this :  this  was  because  a 
thing  could  not  act  where  it  was  not,  and  it  was  supposed  that 
it  was  matter,  not  we,  that  acted  in  perception. 

The  phenomenalist  view  rests  on  a  supposition,  one  way  of 
putting  which  is  that  we  are  thus  passive  in  knowledge  (though 
of  course  we  must  be  careful  about  the  language).  As  good  an 
idea  perhaps  as  can  be  gained  of  the  phenomenalist  scheme  of  | 
knowledge  may  be  gained  in  this  way :  the  one  physical  fact 
which  we  know  to  take  place  in  knowledge  is  that  there  is,  as  I 
have  said,  communication  between  particular  natural  agents 
and  particular  parts  of  our  body,  i.  e,  that  there  is,  in  such  a 
place  and  body,  sensation,  so  far  as  physics  can  conceive  sen- 
sation. At  this  communication  we  are  present,  as  it  were,  or 
in  the  French  use,  'assist':  the  communication  between  the 
matter  on  the  one  side  and  the  matter  on  the  other  is  accom- 
panied by  a  feeling  on  our  part,  and  that  is  knowledge.  Fur- 
ther, in  this  way,  than  there  is  communication,  there  is  no 
knowledge.  The  knowledge  and  the  communication  are  coex- 
tensive. The  communication,  which  in  respect  of  the  particular 
portions  of  it  is  called  'sensation*,  is  often  in  respect  of  the 
whole  of  it  called  'experience'.  The  extension  of  knowledge, 
in  this  view,  is  the  extension  of  this  communication.  There 
are  all  kinds  of  abbreviations  and  summarizations  by  the  help 
of  language,  through  the  means  of  which  we  may  multiply  our 
communication  in  a  manner  otherwise  quite  impossible;  and 

3—2 


36 


SENSATION,   INTELLIGENCE,   AND   WILL.         [CHAP. 


H  t 


there  is  a  world,  so  to  call  it,  of  conditional  communication, 
which  is  what  we  express,  in  this  view,  by  what  we  call  laws 
of  nature :  the  facts  or  particulars  of  the  communication  have 
their  regular  concomitances  and  sequences,  and  much  perhaps 
besides :  and  we  as  it  were  stand  by  (in  virtue  of  the  accom- 
panying feeling)  and  see  all  this.  There  is  a  process  going  on 
which  we  call  'nature',  and  there  is  a  wonderful,  extra-pheno- 
menal power  of  contemplating  this  process:  the  whole  is  know- 
ledge. 

In  reality,  as  I  have  said,  what  we  do  is  not  to  assist  pas- 
sively at  a  process  independent  of  our  real  selves,  but  to  look 
through  it  at  something  beyond :  and  it  is  upon  the  amount, 
and  the  right  application  of  this  activity  that  depend  the  amount 
and  value  of  our  knowledge. 

;  The  roots  however  of  the  phenomenalist  (that  is,  the  wrongly 
phenomenalist)  view  lie  deep,  going  even  to  the  original  suppo- 
sition, that  it  is  feeling  (or  susceptibility)  that  makes  our  being, 
and  not  feeling  and  acting  (or  willing)  as  well,  or  if  we  like  it, 
something  deeper  still,  of  which  feeling  and  willing  both,  and 
perhaps  other  things  besides,  are  equally  early  attributes.  We 
are  sometimes  inadvertently  led  to  this  view  by  our  language, 
when  we  say  that  it  is  consciousness  which  shows  to  us  our  per- 
sonality :  by  this  we  sJumld  mean  not  only  consciousness  as  plea- 
surable or  painful  feeling,  but  consciousness  of  willing  or  acting. 

Our  consciousness  of  willing  or  acting  is  undoubtedly  more 
difficult  to  be  conceived  by  us  than  the  other.  On  account  of 
the  very  intimateness  of  it  to  our  being,  we  may  say  that  we 
only  know  that  we  do  will  and  do  so  far  as  we  measure  our 
action  by  feeling  the  amount  of  it,  i.e.  the  amount  of  effect 
produced  by  it,  and  this  is  going  beyond  ourselves,  and  more 
thoroughly  suggesting,  or  even  making  us  feel,  something  be- 
yond ourselves  than  any  merely  passive  feeling  can  suggest 
this.  This  is  true :  and  though,  as  I  have  said,  we  wake,  even 
so  far  as  feeling  is  concerned,  not  to  ourselves  alone,  but  into 
a  world  of  things  or  an  universe,  it  is  our  commencements  of 
willing  or  of  action  which  first  begin  to  distinctify  this  universe 
to  us,  and  make  us  understand  it  in  particular.  We  feel  time 
without  (necessarily)  feeling  our  activity  if  we  were  beings 
without  will,  and  with  only  sentience  or  susceptibility  of  plea- 


\t 


III.] 


"SENSATION,    INTELLIGENCE,    AND   WILL. 


37 


sure  and  pain,  we  might  feel  and  measure  the  comparative 
duration  of  our  feelings :  but  with  the  feeling  of  spa^^e  awakes 
to  distinctness  the  feeling  of  ourselves  as  active  and  as  doing 
something. 

I  have  said  here  '  awakes  to  distinctness  *:  and  I  am  desir- 
ous that  what  I  have  said  in  the  former  part  of  the  paragraph 
should  be  carefully  attended  to.  That  we  do  not  need  space 
for  our  activity,  becomes  abundantly  evident  in  the  advance  of 
our  consciousness,  for  effort  may  be,  and  is,  expended  on  feeling 
alone,  with  no  other  circumstance  therefore  but  time  belonging 
to  it.  But  space,  which  makes  us  feel  not  only  that  there  is 
something  besides  ourselves,  but  that  it  is  something  which  we 
can  and  do  act  upon,  is  what  at  once  first  brings  us  into  com- 
munication with  this  '  besides*,  and  reveals  to  us  distinctly  our 
own  active  nature. 

In  saying  however  that  it  is  space,  or  the  feeling  of  space, 
which  does  this,  I  am  probably  not  speaking  correctly,  though, 
as  I  said  a  short  time  since,  I  must  refer  to  those  with  clearer 
mechanical  ideas  for  strict  expression  on  this  subject. 

Force  and  matter,  I  suppose,  go  together:  and  so  soon  as  we 
feel  that  we  exercise  not  only  will,  but  force,  we  feel  also  that 
what,  as  thus  felt,  we  afterwards  call  matter  resists  our  force. 
So  far  as  this  is  so,  the  sensation  of  matter  is  as  early  and  as 
intimate  to  us  as  that  5f  space.  I  have  said  that  we  feel  space 
without  going  beyond  ourselves:  that  is,  our  material  selves: 
to  the  extent  to  which  we  feel  ourselves  as  occupying  space, 
we  feel  ourselves  (to  describe  a  simple  thing  in  necessarily 
periphrastic  language)  resisting,  more  or  less,  the  occupation  of 
it  by  anything  else.  I  will  not  attempt  to  follow  out  here 
the  relations  of  space  and  matter.  I  have  said  that  while 
allowing  to  the  idea  of  space,  with  that  of  time,  a  certain  prero- 
gative, I  do  not  look  upon  it  to  be  fitly  described  as,  in  contra- 
distinction to  other  ideas,  a  condition  of  our  perceptions. 

But  our  sensation  of  our  activity  and  of  the  resistance  of 
matter  to  it  is  a  step  which  lands  us  upon  quite  a  new  field  of 
knowledge. 

The  sketch  which  I  am  now  giving  of  the  course  of  know-| 
ledge  does  not  aim  at  being  really  chronological.  We  do  not ; 
have  sensations   at  all   in  the  simple,   separate,    and  marked 


38 


SENSATION,    INTELLIGENCE,   AND   WILL.  [CHAP. 


I 


manner,  which  what  I  have  said,  were  it  intended  to  be  histor- 
ical, would  imply.  We  are  always,  as  the  rule,  feeling  some- 
thing, and  feelings  rapidly  succeed  one  another,  and  become 
entangled  and  compounded  together.  And  thus,  though  I  have 
hitherto  been  speaking  of  one  sort  of  sensations  only  that  we 
have,  there  is  another  sort  (I  call  them  different  sorts  rather 
loosely,  for  it  is  not  of  consequence)  which  we  have  quite  as 
early,  perhaps  earlier,  and  which  must  now  be  spoken  of. 

Sensation  proper,  as  a  feeling,  (I  mean  by  proper  to  distin- 
guish it  from  the  sensation  of  our  activity)  is  all,  in  a  manner, 
as  I  have  said,  pleasurable  or  painful  In  a  manner:  for  the 
sensation  of  time  is  rather  as  containing  our  feeling  of  pleasure 
and  pain,  and  so  far  as  we  have  a  sensation  of  time,  we  must 
perhaps  rather  call  it  neutral.  Our  sensation  of  space  is  as  of 
the  continent  of  our  motion,  of  matter  as  of  the  absorbent,  or 
counter-agent  of  our  force :  how  far  these  sensations  are  to  be 
considered  neutral,  i.e.  not  of  pleasure  and  pain,  seems  hard 
to  determine,  and  not  now  important.  Those  who  think,  in 
the  manner  which  I  have  mentioned,  that  we  are  in  the  first 
instance  only  susceptible  beings,  and  not  active  till  our  activity 
is  called  forth  by  something  which  we  want  and  desire,  may  be 
supposed  really  to  consider  that  action  in  itself  is  a  necessary 
evil,  and  that  we  should  be  happier  and  more  perfect  beings 
without  it:  so  far  as  this  is  so,  the  Sensations  of  space  and 
matter,  as  arising  from  our  action,  must  be  considered  painful. 
On  the  other  hand,  so  far  as  we  look  upon  action  in  the  manner 
in  which  I  have  done,  as  what  our  nature  calls  us  to  for  itself 
as  well  as  for  the  gaining  of  a  result,  they  would  be  to  be 
considered  in  themselves  pleasurable.  Of  course  however  pain 
is  always  a  possible  and  likely  accident  of  them,  as  in  case  of 
the  exertion  or  pressure  being  great.  Be  this  as  it  may,  what- 
ever of  pleasure  or  pain  these  sensations  may  have  in  them  is 
quite  inconsiderable  in  comparison  with  that  which  belongs  to 
other  sensations,  which  may  be  said  to  be  of  pleasure  and  pain, 
leaving  very  little  of  attention  to  anything  beyond  the  sensa- 
tion ;  that  is  (in  the  language  which  I  have  used)  to  the  forma- 
tion of  any  idea  of  the  supposed  object  of  them.  The  cardinal 
sensation  of  this  kind  is  that  which  we  call  taste.  We  have 
sensations  of  pain  and  pleasure  variously  localised  in  our  body, 


H 


m.] 


SENSATION,  INTELLIGENCE,  AND  WILL. 


39 


but  which  suggest  to  us  no  idea  beyond  the  sensation :  but 
when,  in  the  course  of  the  various  parts  of  our  body  coming  in 
contact  by  pressure  with  matter  independent  of  it,  certain  sub- 
stances come  in  contact  with  our  palate,  we  have  sensation  of 
special  pleasure  or  pain,  and  this  sensation  we  call  taste.  Taste 
may  be  considered  the  typical  form  of  the  sensation  which  ac- 
companies the  phenomenal  fact  of  the  communication  between 
the  chemical  properties  of  matter  and  certain  parts  of  our  organ- 
ization; in  other  words,  the  phenomenal  character  of  a  sort  of 
sensation  of  which  taste  may  be  taken  as  the  type  is  that  the 
chemical  properties  of  matter  (I  have  made  such  qualifications 
as  are  to  be  made  in  speaking  of  this  before)  communicate 
with  our  organism,  while  the  subjective  or  feeling  character  of 
the  sensation  is  that  it  is  not  of  activity,  but  of  pleasure  or 
pain,  and  that  perhaps  very  strongly. 

Our  sensation  of  matter  by  pressure  and  our  sensation  of  it 
by  taste  constantly  go  together,  as,  more  or  less,  in  the  case  of 
taste  proper  to  which  I  have  alluded :  so  far  as  we  feel  upon  the 
palate  the  degree  of  hardness,  and  the  shape  (to  which  we  shall 
come  more  fully  presently),  of  the  thing  tasted,  the  knowledge 
which  we  thus  gain  is  not  properly  by  taste,  but  by  the  pre- 
vious sort  of  sensation. 

As  we  may  loosely  call  our  chemical  sensation  of  matter 
(so  to  speak),  which  is  the  etymological  sensus,  'taste',  so  we 
may  call  our  mechanical  sensation  of  it  which  I  have  before 
described,  (the  etymological  feeling),  the  'handling*  of  it  (pal- 
patio, yltr)\d<l>T]<n<;),  the  hand  being  the  portion  of  our  body 
most  naturally  moved  in  this  way. 

The  handling  of  whatever  we  come  in  contact  with  speedily 
gives  to  us  the  sensation,  and  suggests  to  us  the  idea,  of  what 
we  call  its  shape.  Our  sensation  of  this  is  simply  the  feeling  of 
the  amount  and  direction  of  movement  which  the  hand  has  to 
make  in  tracing  its  boundaries. 

We  may  now  (but  we  had  no  business  to  do  so  till  now) 
speak  of  that  which,  in  the  advance  of  knowledge,  is  of  all 
the  most  important  organ  of  sensation,  the  eye :  which  is  in  fact 
a  machine  for  both  handling  or  touching,  and  also  tasting,  that 
is,  appreciating  certain  chemical  qualities  of  matter  removed 
from  us,  perhaps  widely,  in  space.    The  instrument  of  this  com- 


I.  i 


40 


SENSATION,   INTELLIGENCE,    AND   WILL.         [cHAP. 


munication  is  the  particular  physical  substance  or  agent,  (what- 
ever may  be  its  constitutioji),  light, 

I  am  not  going  to  enter  into  any  detail  about  this  com- 
plicated sense.  Suffice  it  to  say,  (describing  first  the  nature 
of  the  phenomenal  communication)  that  there  are  in  the  at- 
mosphere (or  in  space)  variously  coloured  rays  of  light  moving 
in  various  directions,  and  on  the  other  hand  in  our  eye  various 
lenses  in  front  of  a  nervous  surface,  the  whole  variously  move- 
able by  muscles :  after  and  by  means  of  an  action  in  which 
movement  of  the  rays  from  without  and  the  meeting  them  by 
volitional  (though  it  may  be  too  subtle  to  be  traced)  adjustment 
of  the  lenses  &c.  from  within  concur,  the  rays  arrive  at  the 
nervous  surface  in  a  particular  manner  which,  for  our  present 
^purpose,  we  need  not  further  investigate.  The  phenomenal 
communication  being  this,  the  corresponding  subjective  feeling 
is,  that  we,  in  the  language  which  I  have  used  before,  as  it  were 
taste  the  colour  by  means  of  the  nervous  surface,  in  a  way  in 
some  measure  analogous  to  that  in  which  we  taste  the  taste 
of  anything  by  the  palate :  and  that,  contemporaneously  with 
this  (though  in  a  manner  the  commencement  of  the  other  pro- 
cess must  be  regarded  as  the  stimulant)  the  movements  of  the 
various  parts  of  the  eye  (really  volitional,  though  so  infinitely 
rapid,  and  therefore  supplying  us  with  sensation  of  the  former 
kind)  measure  to  us  space  in  the  same  maimer  in  which  I  have 
described  the  movements  of  the  hand  or  other  parts  of  the 
body  to  do  8o\  We  generally  imderstand  that  space  in  the 
line  in  which  we  are  looking  (which  in  most  cases  is  what 
we  call  the  distance  of  the  object  which  we  are  looking  at) 
is  not  measured  to  us  by  the  eye,  or  not  a  thing  which  we 
properly  see. 


\ 


^  Lmagine  the  palm  of  the  hand  to  be  sensitiye  to  particles  travelliog  in 
right  lines,  whenever  these  fall  upon  the  parts  of  it  perpendicularly — imagine 
it  to  have  its  present  power  of  turning  its  face  in  any  direction,  and  of  contracting 
itself  and  turning  about  the  portions  of  its  surface — also  that  it  is  only  the  surface, 
or  palm  itself  that  is  sensitive — and  we  have  the  same  result  secured  in  a  different 
manner  as  I  have  described  in  the  eye.  The  particles  must  of  course  give  sensa- 
tions  independent  of  the  movements,  that  is,  tasUy  as  we  may  call  it.  The  hand 
would  then  be  a  kind  of  instrument  of  distant  taste,  like  our  smell,  and  discrimi- 
native in  the  two  ways,  chemically  and  muscularly— intensively  and  extensively. 

On  the  next  sentence,  see  a  note  in  the  Appendix. 


111.] 


SENSATION,    INTELLIGENCE,    AND   WILL. 


41 


But  it  is  very  hard  to  say  what  we  do  see,  that  is,  to  deter- 
mine what  is  the  best  use  of  language  in  reference  to  the  expres- 
sion 'see',  and  it  is  for  this  reason  that  I  have  spoken,  in  the 
first  instance,  rather  of  other  senses  than  of  this.  The  sensation, 
on  the  whole,  of  space  is  the  same,  whether  the  occasion  of  it  is 
the  movement  of  the  muscles  of  the  eye  or  of  those  of  the 
hand :  and  the  particular  sensations  of  space  are  referred  one 
to  the  other,  the  later  and  more  remote  to  the  earlier  and 
more  intimate.  It  is  possible  that  we  should  not  understand 
the  seen  shape  of  a  remote  body  if  we  had  not  actually  handled 
a  near  one.  The  eye  travels  round  an  object  of  sight  of  any 
magnitude,  as  the  hand  travels  round  a  portion  of  matter  near: 
the  result  in  both  cases  is  our  sensation  of  shape.  When  I 
say  'of  any  magnitude*,  I  mean  only  to  decline  any  question 
which  may  belong  to  physicists,  as  to  how  much  may  be  said  to 
be  seen  at  once,  without  any  movement  of  the  eye.  Whether 
we  can  or  cannot,*  physically,  follow  the  less  and  less  amount 
of  movement,  in  the  case  of  the  perception  of  larger  and  smaller 
shape,  to  entire  absence  of  it,  I  do  not  know. 

Active  sensations  or  sensations  of  handling,  though  almost 
always  present  to  us,  are  what  we  may  call  uniform,  being  of 
space  and  matter  alone.  Passive  sensations  or  sensations  of 
taste  are  conceivably  infinite  in  variety,  at  least  as  various  as 
the  different  agents  in  nature,  and  conceivably  also,  in  par- 
ticular cases,  such  as  could  be  brought  into  no  relation  the  one 
to  the  other.  As  it  is,  our  powers  of  nervous  or  sensitive  com- 
munication with  natural  agents  are  not  numerous.  Of  those 
which  we  have,  some  are  in  close  relation  one  to  another,  as 
taste  and  smell;  some  are,  I  suppose,  so  far  as  we  can  go,  out 
of  relation  with  each  other,  as  taste  proper  and  colour. 

I  shall  now,  as  the  shortest  and  most  natural  way  of  ex- 
pression, speak  of  seeing  objects.  I  hope  that,  after  what  has 
been  said,  we  may  be  able  to  do  so  without  being  misled  by 
our  language. 

But  what  is  the  meaning  of  seeing  objects?  ) 

The  sense  of  sight  as  it  is  developed  becomes  the  most  im-f 
portant  sense,  the  intellectual  sense,  or  the  sense  in  a  special 
manner.    The  taste-like  sensation  of  colour,  always  most  refined 
as  compared  with  other  taste-like  sensations,  occupies  the  atten- 


42 


SENSATION,   INTELLIGENCE,   AND   WILL.  [CHAP. 


•HI.] 


SENSATION,   INTELLIGENCE,   AND    WILL. 


43 


\ 


I 


\ 


If 


tion  rather  in  its  character  of  a  means  of  discrimination  than  as 
an  actual  pleasure  or  pain,  except  as  these  latter  mingle  with 
intellectual  considerations,  and  become  artistic  or  sesthetic. 
The  active  sensation,  in  sight,  of  space  and  shape  or  figure 
brings  itself  into  relation  with,  tests  itself  by,  and  grounds  itself 
upon,  the  nearer  sensations  of  the  same  kind  which  accompany 
motions  of  the  whole  body  or  of  larger  portions  of  it,  and  then, 
we  may  say,  developes  them  and  multiplies  them  indefinitely. 
The  sight  of  a  wide  prospect  is  really  a  mental  travelling  over 
it.  What  we  really,  in  our  consciousness,  may  be  said  to  mean 
by  saying  that  we  see  one  conspicuous  object,  for  instance,  of 
such  a  magnitude  and  figure  at  such  a  distance  off,  another 
of  such  another  magnitude  and  figure  at  such  a  distance  from 
that,  and  these  in  various  relation  of  magnitude,  figure,  and 
distance,  with  others,  is,  that  were  we  among  them  and  in  con- 
tact severally  with  each  we  should  have  to  move  the  parts  of 
our  body  so  much  and  so  much  in  feeling  about  them,  and  in 
getting  from  one  to  the  other.  What  amounts  to  movement  of 
this  kind,  impossible  probably  in  fact,  and  if  it  were  not  so, 
endless  probably  in  duration,  sight,  through  the  intervention  of 
light,  effects  in  a  few  moments.  Volitional  movement  of  the 
muscles  of  our  eye  accompanying  the  arrival  of  the  light  at  it, 

I  which  light  arrives  in  the  particular  manner  in  which  it  does 
owing  to  certain  particular  circumstances  in  distant  matter,  the 
effect  is  the  same  as  if  the  rays  of  light  were  so  many  sensitive 
filaments,  so  to  call  them,  belonging  to  ourselves,  by  which, 
across  whatever  distance,  we  felt  or  touched  that  matter. 

f  The  sense  of  sight  being  thus,  with  developement  of  the 
intellect,  the  most  important,  takes  also  a  subjective  importance 
of  a  different  kind.  We  use  it  as  the  typical  sense  by  means 
of  which  we  describe,  and  to  which  we  refer,  the  operations 
of  sense  in  general  We  speak  of  the  feelings  which  we  often 
have,  closely  resembling  sensation  or  feeling,  but  not  accom- 
panied, like  it,  with  communication  between  our  body  and  the 
universe  beyond,  as  imagination,  by  a  metaphor  derived  from 
sight.  We  speak  again  of  something  resembling  this  last,  but 
accompanied  by  a  (supposedly  well-founded)  belief  in  the  im- 

I  portance  and  groundedness  of  it,  as  intuition  or  inward  sight. 
It  is  to  this  use  of  the  sense  of  sight  that  are  due  the  terms 


'presentation*,  'representation',  and  many  similar:  for  in  con- 
sequence of  the  rapidity  of  the  visual  movements,  we  may 
have  in  contact  with  the  sense,  or  with  what  is  understood  as 
the  internal  sense,  at  what  seems  the  same  moment,  any 
amount  of  objects. 

In  the  case  of  persons  blind  from  birth,  I  presume  that  this, 
the  quasi-visual  imagination  or  inward  sight,  exists  to  a  certain 
extent,  though  there  must  be  an  absence  of  distinction  of 
colour,  and  it  is  hard  to  understand  how  space  is  represented 
in  the  consciousness.  Still  I  conclude  that  it  is  more  than  dark 
space,  or  a  mere  generalization  of  handling,  feeling,  groping. 
The  human  organization  being  one,  and  the  eye  being  a  part  of 
it  in  such  a  way  that  the  other  parts,  if  we  may  use  the  lan- 
guage, suppose  it  and  take  account  of  it ;  there  being  also,  we 
may  suppose,  as  a  part  of  that  internal  organization  which 
every  external  organization  of  a  being  with  will  supposes,  an 
impulse  to  the  use  of  the  eye,  even  where  that  impulse  is,  from 
circumstances,  abortive:  though  the  stimulant  to  any  ocular 
movement,  by  the  sensation  of  colour,  is  wanting,  and  perhaps 
any  such  actual  movement  impossible:  we  may  consider  it 
probable  that  there  is  something  which  supplements  the  hand- 
ling and  feeling,  and  enables,  in  a  manner,  something  like  a 
prospect  to  be  present  to  what  we  call  the  imagination.  It  is 
a  physiological  question  upon  which  I  do  not  enter,  whether, 
when  imagination  is  at  work,  there  is  or  is  not  disturbance  in 
those  portions  of  the  body  which,  if  the  imagination  were  sen- 
sation, would  be  correspondently  with  the  sensation,  in  such 
circumstances  of  disturbance — whether  e.  g.  in  visual  imagina- 
tion there  is  motion  or  affection  of  parts  of  the  eye,  &c.,  and 
so  for  other  senses.  / 

I  said  a  short  time  since,  that  it  is  a  difficult  thing  to  say 
what  we  really  see,  that  is,  for  philosophers,  when  they  are 
talking  together  about  seeing,  to  be  sure  that  they  are  using 
the  word  in  the  same  application.  There  is  no  reason  for  diffi- 
culty of  this  kind  in  the  case  of  feeling  by  touch:  we  have 
indeed  in  this  case  much  to  bear  in  mind  as  to  the  variety  of 
use  of  both  the  words  ' feeling '  and  'touch',  besides  the  distinc- 
tion which  has  constantly  to  be  borne  in  mind  between  the 
consciousness,  whether  of  effort  or  not,  and  the  movement  or 


\ 


1*1  '■  I- 


44 


SENSATION^   INTELLIGENCE,    AND   WILL.  [CHAP. 


III.J 


SENSATION,    INTELLIGENCE,   AND   WILL. 


45 


/ 


f 


1 


: 


communication:  but  with  care  as  to  this,  the  case  is  simple. 
Siglit,  however,  is  much  more  complicated. 
In  reality,  Crabbe's  lines, 

It  is  the  mind  that  sees :   the  outward  eyes 
Present  the  object,  but  the  mind  descries : 

are  happier  philosophically  than  perhaps  he  meant :  so  far  as 
we  speak,  with  any  reason,  of  an  object  of  sight,  it  is  the  mind 
that  sees  the  object,  and  the  real  sight  is  this;  namely,  of  the 
(supposedly)  independent  and  more  or  less  distant  object,  by 
the  mind:  the  sensive  apparatus  of  vision  or  the  eye  with  its 
appendages  perform  simply  the  part  of  presenting  or  introduc- 
ing; and  it  is  not  any  optical  phenomenon  (image,  e.g.)  which 
may  be  ascertained  to  occur  (or  be  formed)  within  this  appa- 
ratus which  is  what  we  see,  i.e.  is  the  object  of  the  sensation 
\  as  feeling.  In  the  case  of  sight,  the  corporeal  communication 
which,  taken  altogether,  is  what  presents  the  object  to  the 
mind,  is  of  a  most  complicated  nature.  The  light  is  prepared 
in  a  double  way  for  the  mysterious  point  (from  the  nature  of 
it  never  to  be  passed  by  phenomenal  speculation)  at  which  it  is 
converted,  so  to  speak,  into  sensibility,  first  by  passing  through 
a  self-adjusting  spy-glass,  and  then  by  being  converted,  so  to 
speak  again,  into  nervous  agitation  or  modification  of  some 
kind,  which  is  what  our  sensation  (or  feeling)  accompanies.  It 
is  difficult  to  follow  this  process  without  being  in  danger  of 
thinking  either  that  the  retina  sees  through  the  spy-glass,  or 
that  we  see  the  image  on  the  retina,  to  do  which,  I  suppose, 
another  spy-glass  would  be  required  behind  it,  like  the  one 
before.  But  in  reality,  all  that  can  be  physiologically  or  opti- 
cally made  out  as  to  this  complicated  process  is  part  of  the 
corporeal  communication,  which  our  sensation,  or  feeling,  only 
accompanies.  And  the  sensation  which  we  have  is  rudimen- 
tarily  perhaps,  simply  of  a  colour,  how  spatially  related  to  us 
is  hard  to  trace  and  perhaps  not  very  much  worth  tracing. 
When  the  sense  is  at  all  developed  the  sensation  which 
we  have  is  that  of  a  coloured  object  having  magnitude  and 
figure,  and  (with  still  further  development),  soUd  shape  and 
definite  distance.  This  is  what  we  call  seeing:  this  is  what 
we  see. 


But,  in  this  noble  sense,  the  corporeal  communication  which 


is  the  means  of  it  is  not  more  elaborate  than  the  logical  result 
of  the  sensation,  for  the, growth  of  knowledge,  is  important. 
What  do  we  mean  by  saying  that  what  we  see"  is  an  object,  or 
thing  ?  Our  eye  is  moveable  all  soi-ts  of  ways,  and  rays  enter 
it  in  all  sorts  of  directions,  forming  all  sorts  of  images :  in  other 
words,  what  we  have  at  any  moment  before  the  eyes  is  a 
vague  confusion  of  colour,  a  kaleidoscope  only  without  even 
apppjent  order:  how  is  it  then  that  we  see  things?  How  is  it 
that  in  this  confusion,  we  individualize,  realize,  and  distinguish 
any  portions  from  the  rest  ?  / 

In  speaking  here  I  must  myself,  and  I  hope  the  reader  will, 
be  careful.  We  never  do  (saving  disturbance  by  disease)  see 
the  confusion  I  am  speaking  of,  and  it  may  be  said  that  it  is 
not  before  the  eye — ^but  the  difficulty  which  we  have  here  is 
one  which  belongs  to  the  consideration  of  the  sense  of  sight  all 
along.  In  fact,  it  takes  its  place  with  the  other  senses,  and 
is  educated  through  a  use  of  it  conjunct  with  them,  and  some- 
thing more  which  I  am  going  to  mention  begins  from  the  first 
with  it,  in  such  a  way  that  by  the  time  that  the  eye  is  open 
to  a  wide*  view  of  colour  it  has  (or  rather  we  have)  already 
learnt  discrimination  of  objects  in  this  view.  How  we  learn,  I 
shall  try  to  show. 

I  said  some  time  since,  without  then  explaining  it,  that^ 
unity  is  not  phenomenal.  I  made  the  statement  then  in  its 
broad  generality,  which  for  my  purpose  at  that  time  was  suffi- 
ciently near  the  truth :  more  accurately  the  truth  is  that  unity 
is  phenomenally  exceptional,  a  statement  which  in  its  place  I 
wiU  explain.  What  I  mean  is,  that  the  communication  between 
natural  agents  (as  I  have  called  them)  and  certain  portions  of 
our  organization,  which  is  the  physical  fact,  and  upon  which  the 
phenomenalist  view  rests,  does  not  suggest  (if  we  suppose  it 
viewed  or  understood  by  a  being  looking  quietly  upon  it,  in  the 
manner  I  have  formerly  mentioned,  and  the  result  to  be  know- 
ledge) that  discrimination  of  objects  from  which  springs  our 
idea  of  the  universe  as  composed  of  things  or  separate  unities  or 
individualities.  We  may  hold  simply  (if  indeed  we  do  hold)/ 
the  phenomenalist  view  in  our  developed  intelligence,  but  we 
never  can  arrive  at  it,  we  never  can  learn  it,  except  by  an- 
unphenomenal  process.    This  amounts  to  the  same  as  I  have/ 


.^»^ 


iMtaMB 


46 


SENSATION,    INTELLIGENCE,    AND    WILL.         [CHAP. 


III.l 


SENSATION,   INTELLIGENCE,    AND   WILL. 


47 


I" 


i 


1 1 


III 


i 


I  formerly  said  when  I  called  the  phenomenalist  view  an  ahs- 
\  traction.  Unless  we  to  a  certain  degree  shut  our  eyes,  it 
cannot  exist  to  us  without  much,  we  perhaps  indeed  cannot  tell 
what,  existing  besides.  If  I  may  venture  safely  to  use  chemical 
language,  1  would  say  that  the  phenomenal  universe,  as  con- 
ceived by  us,  is  a  sort  of  deposit  from  our  thinking  nature, 
definite,  tangible,  visible,  while  our  thought  besides  is  fluid  and 
unformed — but  still,  real  as  it  is,  and  valuable  as  it  is  as  against 
other  spheres  of  thought  in  some  respects,  to  say  that  it  is  all, 
or  that  it  is  the  most  valuable  knowledge  absolutely,  is  not  only 

'  not  true,  but  is  intellectually  suicidal.     Phenomenalism  itself  is 

^  not  true,  unless  much  is  true  besides  it.  So  far  as  it  may  be 
said  without  contradiction,  if  we  had  been  phenomenalists  and 
physiologists  from  the  first  we  never  should  have  been  so  at 

'  all,  for  we  never  should  have  known  anything.  If  we  had 
understood  the  mechanism  of  the  eye  before  we  began  to  see, 
what  we  should  really  have  rested  in  would  have  been  the 
material  communication;  that  through  which  we  should  have 
attempted  to  arrive  at  knowledge  would  have  been  our  own 
sensations  as  the  physiologist  would  make  them  out  or  judge 
them  likely  to  be,  and  we  should  have  seen  according  to  these : 
following  these  out  into  matter  independent  of  us,  we  should 
have  understood,  perhaps,  the  laws  of  light  and  of  other  agents 
which  affected  us,  and  should  have  had,  to  fill  our  thoughts, 
such  an  universe  as  this  kind  of  knowledge  would  produce  us : 
an  universe  of  the  constituents  of  things  ;  a  power  of  following 
the  elements  of  matter,  or  such  of  them  as  our  sensation 
revealed,  wherever  they  were,  with  attention  chained  to  them: 
but  the  universe  of  things,  as  actual  human  language  or  any 
language  we  can  conceive  does  or  must  represent  it,  would  have 
been  entirely  alien  to  us.  Our  subjective  sensation,  or  sensa- 
tion as  feeling,  is  not  a  sensation  or  knowledge  of  the  phe- 
nomenal sensation  or  material  communication,  but  is  a  sensa- 
tion or  feeling  by  means  of  this  of  something  beyond  which  is 
what  it  is  to  us  on  account  of  the  mixture  in  it  of  certain 
elements  independent  of  phenomenalism,   and  on  which  the 

\view  which  we  actually  have,  even  of  phenomenalism,  depends. 

The  best  way  of  expressing  this  would  probably  be  to  say, 

that  it  is  not  the  particular  circumstances  of  the  material  com- 


munication which,  more  than  in  a  subordinate  degree,  deter- 
mine those  of  the  subjective  sensation  or  feeling  (the  same 
thing  as  by  many  philosophers  is  called  'perception')  but  that 
with  the  nature  of  this  feeling  other  quite  different  considera- 
tions enter.  We  understand  this  most  in  the  case  of  sight, 
because  the  material  communication  is  longer  and  more  com- 
plicated, but  it  is  the  same  in  all  sensation.  We  do  not  feel 
all  the  material  communication  (as  whether  the  image  on  the 
retina  is  upwards  or  downwards),  and  so  far  as  we  know  about 
it,  it  is  physiological  research  which  tells  us. 

Perhaps  it  may  help  to  illustrate  what  I  have  here  said 
about  sight  if  I  refer  for  a  moment  to  what  Dr  Whewell,  follow- 
ing the  language  of  Aristotle,  has  said,  when,  in  distinguishing 
between  primary  and  secondary  qualities,  he  makes  it  a  charac- 
ter of  these  latter  that  they  are  perceived  through  a  medium,  as 
colour  through  light.  I  cannot  enter  into  this  language.  So  far 
as  it  is  the  subjective  sensation  or  feeling  which  is  spoken  of, 
that  is  of  an  object  as  seen,  of  a  thing  as  we  call  it,  the  sun 
for  instance,  and  everything  which  intervenes  between  our 
conscious  self  and  the  thing  seen  is  medium,  the  whole  visual 
apparatus  together  with  light  and  colour.  So  far  as  it  is  the 
material  communication  which  the  feeling  accompanies,  that  is 
spoken  of,  that  is  not  with  the  sun,  but  with  light,  and  there 
is  no  medium  at  all  What  Dr  Whewell  says  on  the  subject 
of  outness  is  open,  I  think,  to  the  same  sort  of  criticism.  But 
to  this  I  may  very  likely  refer  again. 

I  said,  in  speaking  of  the  awakening  of  our  consciousness,"^ 
that  the  first  recognition  of  our  own  being  is  accompanied  with 
the  recognition  of  something  besides  it,  or  of  an  universe  into 
which  we  are  bom.  It  is  the  same  as  if  I  had  said,  that  the 
first  recognition  of  anything  not  ourselves,  or  of  the  universe, 
was  accompanied  by  the  recognition  of  our  own  being.  In 
each  case  the  one  is  the  counter-notion  of  the  other:  the 
notion  of  the  one  is  formed  by  distinguishing  it  from  the  other. 
Whichever  is  the  first  distinct  and  aflarmative  notion  is  in  a 
manner  not  the  first,  for  the  other  is  the  ground  and  basis 
of  it.  We  will  suppose  however,  ourselves  the  first :  the  uni- 
verse then  (to  apply  so  grand  a  term),  or  independent  reality 
is  what  we  first  set  against  ourselves,  or  set  ourselves  as  it 


48 


8ENSATI0S,    INTELLIGENCE,    AND    WILL.  [CHAP. 


Ill] 


SENSATION,   INTELUQENCE,  ASi)   WILL, 


49 


m 


were  to  measure.  The  universe  has  being  as  we  have,  so  far 
as  we  then  know  being.  There  is  an  original  logical  genus 
with  its  two  species  or  individualities,  subject  and  object  of 
knowledge.  At  the  same  time  the  universe  is  not  only  under- 
stood as  sharing  with  us  in  being,  but  as  the  ground  from 
which  we  stand  off:  we  are  in  this  respect  a  part  of  it :  and 
what  is  to  be  contrasted  or  paralleled  with  us  is  not  it,  but 

\  one  part  of  it  after  another  as  distinguished  from  it. 

To  describe  in  a  sort  of  exaggerated  and  magnified,  and  so 
far  absurd  way,  the  progress  of  knowledge,  a  way  however 
which  may  facilitate  the  conception  of  it:  each  successive 
reality,  as  it  disengages  itself  to  us  from  the  universe  as  yet 
of  confusion,  is  to  us  at  first  a  counterpart  of  ourselves :  our 
notion  of  ourselves  is  what  we  carry  with  us,  is  our  primary 
idea  of  being,  and  what,  as  one  (nervous)  sensation  after  another 
stimidates  our  intelligence,  we  mingle  in  our  thought  with 
the  sensation :  while,  as  I  have  said,  it  is  by  a  continual  pro- 
cess of  self- correction  that  we  advance  in  true  knowledge.  The 
fact  is,  that  every  great  step  in  knowledge,  besides  what  it 
may  have  about  it  of  addition  to  an  aggregate,  has  the  double 
character  as  well  both  of  correction  of  wrong  previous  view 
and  of  imderstanding  why  the  wrong  previous  view  was  taken, 
or  in  other  words,  of  understanding  what  there  is  in  it  that  is 
true  and  right :  from  the  former  of  these  processes,  united  with 
the  aggregation  of  observation,  results  the  phenomenal  view : 
from  the  latter  resydt  to  us,  as  we  shall  see,  considerations 
which  suggest  to  us  that  the  phenomenalist  view,  though  true 
in  its  way,  is  not  all  that  we  have  to  think  of 

I  To  the  opening  intelligence  and  awakening  will,  what  meets 
and  resists  our  effort  appears  to  live  as  we  do,  and  is  the  object 
of  passion  in  us  as  if  it  were  another  self;  and  when  this  is 
corrected,  as  it  soon  is,  there  are  left  in  the  ground  various 
roots  or  portions  of  it :  one  is,  that  there  is  something  analo- 
gous to  our  will  in  bodies  or  matter  which  nevertheless  we  do 
not  conceive  to  have  life,  by  which  they  can  initiate  or  make 
things  begin  to  be,  by  which  they  can  be  caiises  of  things  in  a 
sense  distinct  from  being  regular  portions  of  a  chain  in  which 
such  things  occur :  another  is,  that  though  particulars  of  the 
universe  (so  as  yet  to  call  them)  have  not  life  they  have  that 


unity,  or  individuality,  or  reason  why  they  should  be  distin- 
guished and  separately  thought  of,  which  in  fact  is  only  sug- 
gested to  us  by  our  consciousness  of  our  own  life  and  conse- 
quent felt  self-belonging  or  independence,  and  which,  like  the 
idea  of  cause,  is  a  sort  of  relic  or  reminiscence  of  the  life 
which  the  infant  intellect  supposed  in  things. 

It  will  be  seen  more  fully  now  why  I  said  that  the  notion  ^ 
of  unity,  or  of  'things',  is  not  phenomenal.  When  we  say,  we 
see  a  thing  or  an  object,  we  are  using  language  of  the  same 
kind  as  when  we  say,  such  and  such  a  fact  is  due  to  such  and 
such  a  cause.  Phenomenally,  cause  means  invariable  antece- 
dent, and  thing  means  portion  of  matter,  or  of  that  which  fills 
space.  But  if  we  had  been  condemned  from  the  first  to  think 
of  *  cause*  only  as  invariable  antecedent  and  of  'thing*  as  por- 
tion of  matter,  we  never  should  have  learnt  anything.  Fact  is 
continuous,  and  we  should  have  had  nothing  to  make  us  dis- 
criminate between  one  portion  of  it  £^nd  another,  so  as  to  say 
that  the  one  went  before  the  other.  Matter  is  the  interaction 
of  a  variety  of  what  I  have  called  natural  agents,  elements, 
forces,  &c.,  and  the  phenomenalist,  if  he  saw  things  as  he  knows 
them  chemically  to  be,  and  really  got  rid  of  the  kindly  delu- 
sions (so  at  present  to  call  them)  which  are  the  conditions  of 
our  learning  anything  (as  e.g.  if  he  not  only  knew  that,  but  saw 
things  as  if,  the  colour  of  an  object  was  not  a  part  of  the 
object,  but  a  part  of  the  light  which  brings  it  to  his  eye),  I 
should  think  could  hardly  keep  his  senses.  It  would  be  as  if 
phenomenal  truth  required  us  not  only  to  know  that  we  are, 
but  actually  to  feel  ourselves,  whirling  roimd  upon  the  earth's 
surface  in  space  at  the  rate,  whatever  it  is,  at  which  we  actually 
are  doing  so.  ^ 

When  I  said  that  in  strictness,  imity  was  phenomenally 
exceptional  rather  than  unphenomenal,  what  I  meant  was  this. 
Suppose  no  reference  at  all  to  our  own  life  and  individuality, 
and  suppose,  as  I  have  more  than  once  said  is  the  most  conve- 
nient way  of  putting  the  phenomenalist  view,  that  we  are  in 
some  way  impersonally  merely  present  at  and  intelligent  of  the 
communication  which  goes  on  between  portions  of  our  body 
and  matter  besides:  life  is  a  fact  which  we  should  meet  with  in 
nature  as  so  viewed :  there  would  be  in  it  what  we  should  call 


-—.--•-- 1 


50 


SENSATION,   iNTELLIQENCE,   AND   WILL.         [CHAP. 


III.] 


SENSATION,    INTELLIGENCE,   AND   WILL. 


61 


1)> 


'I 
li 


living  beings.  Such  beings  would  separate  themselves  off, 
even  to  our  phenomenal  view,  from  the  rest  of  nature  as  unities 
or  individual.  I  will  not  follow  this  out  now,  for  the  mixture 
of  various  life  in  nature  is  a  thing  which  I  should  wish  to  speak 
of  by  itself  I  mention  it,  as  a  necessary  qualification  to  the 
statement  that  unity  is  unphenomenal.  But  I  do  not  think 
any  will  say  that  this  occasional  occurrence  in  nature  of  parts 
of  matter  of  which  we  may  predicate  phenomenal  unity  can 
account  for  the  fact  that  our  mixed  and  confused  corporeal 
communication  with  natural  agents  takes  the  form,  in  the 
intelligence  or  to  the  sensation  as  feeling,  of  our  noticing  and 
distinguishing  individual  objects  or  things.  Nor  can  the  phe- 
nomenal fact  of  spatial  arrangements  and  conditions,  as  of  mag- 
nitude, shape,  &c.  by  itself  do  so.  We  look  upon  objects  in  a 
different  way  from  that  in  which  we  look  upon  clouds,  or 
masses  of  cloud.  And  if  it  be  said  that  a  quantity  of  other' 
sensations,  as  of  colour,  are  added  to  that  of  spatial  arrange- 
ment :  what  is  meant  by  these  sensations  is  nothing  more  than 
this  same  confused  communication,  with  our  body,  of  a  variety 
of  natural  agents :  whence  the  resulting  unity  ? 

There  is  no  doubt  that  spatial  circumscription  is  one  ele- 
ment of  it :  but  it  is  one  element  only,  and  it  does  not  give 
life  to  the  object  enough.  We  notice  what  we  notice  and  make 
it  a  thing  distinguishing  it  from  what  else  is  within  our  view, 
partly  because,  doubtless,  it  is  of  such  or  such  a  size  and  shape : 
but  we  require  more  impulse  to  the  notice  and  distinguishment 
than  this  furnishes.  I  think  Sir  William  Hamilton  uses  the  term 
interested  in  application  to  our  sensations  which  are  pleasurable 
or  painfrd,  to  distinguish  them  from  others :  in  reality  all  our 
sensations  or  perceptions  may  fitly  be  called  interested :  the 
interest  in  the  case  of  the  intellectual  ones  being  more  abstract 
and  remote.  For  our  notice  or  distinguishment  of  what  then 
is  to  us  a  thing,  there  is  required  not  only  size  and  shape,  so 
far  as  these  are  required,  but  what  is  in  the  first  instance  a 
comparison  of  the  thing  with,  or  a  reference  of  it  to,  ourselves. 
Grammatical  gender,  as  compared  with  the  notion  of  actual 
sex  and  of  neutralness  or  absence  of  personality,  owes  its  origin, 
in  all  probability,  to  a  similar  feeling  about  things  as  that 
which  I  have  mentioned,  that  their  reality  was  a  sort  of  remnant 


or  reminiscence  of  an  actually  supposed  life,  in  an  infant  or 
mythologic  state  of  the  intelligence.    And  when  the  members 
or  portions  of  the  universe,  the  greater  portion  of  them,  have 
ceased  to  bear  to  us,  as  viewed  by  our  .intelligence,  the  sort  of 
fraternal  relation  which  belongs  to  a  similar  life,  they  come,  a 
great  many  of  them,  to  bear  to  us  another.     In  the  develop- 
ment of  our  activity,  and  our  imagination,  without  which  our 
activity  would  be  nothing,  we  very  soon  become  constructive: 
from  using  our  hands  as  instruments  to  move  matter,  we  begin 
to  use  them  as  instruments  to  put  it  together  or  to  make.     It 
is  with  the  first  awakening  of  the  constructive  impulse  that 
begins  what  corresponds  to  the  neuter  gender,  the  true  notice 
and  distinguishment  of  things.     A  *  thing'  is  what  we  may  use 
or  make,  or  if  not  we,  what  others  may  use  or  have  made. 
Our  notice  of  things  is  in  this  way  from  the  first  what  I  have 
above  called  interested:  what  makes  them  individualities  or 
things  to  us  is  originally  a  supposed  relation  to  ourselves. 

It  may  really  be  called  a  life  which  this  relation  to  our-  ^ 
selves,  or  interest,  puts  into  the  universe  as  we  have  sensation 
of  it.  It  is  not  a  life  such  as  our  infant  intelligence  supposes, 
like  our  own,  but  it  w  a  life  to  our  intelligence :  the  idea  of 
the  relation  to  ourselves  soon  dies  away,  like  that  of  actual  life, 
but  there  is  left  what  is  the  soul  of  thought,  namely,  the  suppo- 
sition of  meaning  or  reason  of  things  being  what  they  are.  But 
to  this  we  shall  come  soon.  ^ 

The  subjective  sensation  or  feeling,  though  it  accompanies 
the  bodily  communication,  cannot  properly  be  said  to  corre- 
spond to  it,  for  this  reason :  that  while  it  is  highly  likely  that 
there  are  portions  of  the  communication  which  have  no  coun- 
terpart in  the  feeling,  it  is  certain  that  there  is  much  in  the 
feehng  which  has  no  counterpart  in  the  communication.  It  is 
this  latter,  when  philosophers  use  such  language,  which  is  un- 
derstood by  the/o77^  of  the  sensation,  or  the  form  superadded 
upon  the  sensation,  so  that  sensation  as  consciousness  or  know- 
ledge is  something  different  from  what  it  would  be,  were  it 
simple  attention  to  the  communication.  The  word  'form'  is  as 
ambiguous  as  'sensation*.  We  may  understand  the  meaning  of 
it  best  perhaps  in  this  way :  that  the  relation  of  shape  to  matter 
as  concretely  and  rudely  understood  (stone,  clay,  &c.),  is  taken  as 

4—2 


i. 


V    I 


H  ! 


|l' 


/ 


52  SENSATION,    INTELLIGENCE,    AND   WILL.       [CHAP.  III. 

a  type,  figure,  or  suggestion  of  the  relation  of  something  (the 
metaphysical  form  which  we  want  to  understand)  to  incondite 
or  confused  material  (so  to  call  it)  of  any  kind.  As  the  sculp- 
tor or  modeller  gives  shape  to  his  clay,  so  is  something  given 
to  the  unmeaning  and  unsuggestive  feeling— which,  if  we  merely 
felt,  as  we  feel  a  prick  or  a  pinch,  what  is  going  on  in  our  retina 
and  the  other  sensive  portions  of  our  body,  would  be  all  that 
there  would  be— to  make  it  the  meaning  and  suggestive  feeling 
which  the  real  subjective  sensation  is.  This,  which  is  given,  is 
the  form  of  the  sensation. 

A  result  of  the  fact,  that  our  subjective  sensation  has  thus, 
in  comparison  with  the  bodily  feeling  and  any  mere  feeling  of 
that,  a  form  given  to  it,  is  this,  that  we  consider  ourselves  to 
be  knowing  or  feeling,  not,  as  in  the  phenomenal  fact,  something 
in  ourselves,  but  something  beyond  ourselves :  and  when  I  said 
some  time  back,  that  at  the  same  time  we  both  have  a  sensa- 
tion of  a  thing,  and  form  an  idea  of  it,  I  might  have  expressed 
the  same  by  saying  that  the  special  character  of  the  sensation, 
as  having  the  form  that  it  has,  is  that  it  is  something  the  mind 
does  not  rest  in.  The  mind  makes  out  of  it  something  which 
it  rests  in.  The  sensation  passes  away,  yielding  to  the  next 
sensation :  but  it  has  done  something  and  it  has  left  something: 
and  this  is  expressed  by  saying  that  we  have  formed  an  idea. 

Our  sensations  give  form  to  each  other,  and  the  early  and 
great  sensation,  that  which  we  have  of  space,  goes  some  way,  in 
the  manner  which  I  have  mentioned,  in  giving  form  to  all  the 
sensations  which  follow  it.    But  it  does  not  do  everything. 

I  hope  to  make  what  I  have  said  upon  these  subjects  clearer 
by  comparing  it  with  what  has  been  said  by  others. 


I 


CHAPTEE   IV. 

FEKRIER'S  INSTITUTES  OF  METAPHYSIG 

It  is  possible  that  the  view  which  I  have  endeavoured  to 
exhibit  here  will  be  better  understood  if  I  make  a  few  remarks 
on  one  or  two  of  the  most  important  English  works  of  our  time 
on  Psychology  and  Logic,  showing  how  far  they  fall  in  with 
the  distinction  which  I  have  endeavoured  to  draw  between  the 
phenomenalist  and  the  philosophical  or  logical  view,  and  how 
far  they  offend  against  it.  I  do  this  with  no  care  for  criticizing 
or  controverting  the  works  which  I  shall  name,  but  simply 
because  I  think  such  a  course  is  the  best  illustration  which  I 
can  give  of  my  own  view. 

The  books  of  wTiich  I  shall  speak  have  been  mentioned  in 
the  Introduction,  as  well  as  the  principle  of  their  selection  and 
arrangement,  and  the  first  which  comes  is  Professor  Ferrier's 
Institutes  of  Metaphysic. 

Whatever  demerits  Professor  Ferrier's  book  may  have,  it 
has  what  I,  having  given  the  view  which  I  have  given,  cannot 
but  regard  as  a  very  great  merit,  namely,  that  it  is  free,  I 
should  think  entirely,  from  the  confusion  of  thought  which 
much  which  I  have  written  is  directed  to  prevent.  He  has 
invented  or  adopted  the  term  '  epistemology*  for  the  logical  or 
philosophical  exposition  which  he  has  given  of  the  nature  of 
knowledge,  and  has,  it  seems  to  me,  in  a  manner  of  which  there 
are  not  many  examples,  kept  in  mind  throughout  the  assump- 
tions with  which  he  has  started,  without  changing  his  point  of 
view,  or  introducing  alien  and  unwarranted  considerations.  I^ 
do  not  attach  much  importance  to  the  show  of  demonstration 
which  his  Euclidic  method  exhibits,  for  which,  I  think,  the 
subject  is  not  adapted.  In  fact,  he  has  omitted  from  it  that 
most  important  preliminary,  the  definitions  and  axioms,  and 


• 


I 


54 


FERRIER*S  INSTITUTES  OP   METAPHTSIC.         [CHAP. 


that  this  omission  is  important,  may  appear  from  the  fact  that 
his  first  proposition,  from  which  all  the  rest  are  supposed  to 
follow,  and  which  is  treated  as  almost  self-evident,  Mr  Her- 
bert Spencer,  whose  book  I  shall  speak  of  shortly,  totidem 
verbis  denies*.  Till  axioms  then  are  agreed  upon,  representing 
a  ground  common  to  various  thinkers  on  the  subject,  the  most 

\  perfect  consecution  in  the  demonstration  is  not  important.  Nor 
do  I  agree  with  Mi*  Ferrier's  notion  of  the  relation  of  the  epi- 
stemological  view  which  he  gives  to  the  view,  in  general,  which, 
with  great  clearness  and  vigour,  he  gives  as  contrasting  with 
it.  He  describes  this  latter  partly  as  *  psychology ',  which  with 
him  is  a  term  of  great  opprobrium,  and  more  generally,  as  'ordi- 
nary thinking',  and  something  which  it  is  the  business  of  phi- 
losophy to  correct.  This  ordinary  thinking  represents  in  the 
main  what  I  have  called  the  phenomenalist  view  (with  a  mix- 
ture indeed  of  the  'logical'  which  I  hope  at  a  future  time  to 
notice),  which,  it  seems  to  me,  is  as  valid  within  its  large  pro- 
vince as  epistemological  thinking  is  in  its  province,  the  busi- 
ness of  the  latter  being  not  to  correct  or  simply  to  oppose  the 
former,  but  to  prevent  the  misapplication  of  it.  A  good  deal, 
no  doubt,  of  'ordinary  thinking'  is  simply  the  philosophy  of 
bad  philosophers :  but  the  mass  of  it,  as  represented  by  lan- 
guage, is  not 

It  is  not,  I  think,  so  much  in  the  direct  line  of  Mr  Terrier's 
thought  as  in  the  incidental  remarks,  and  the  whole  manner  of 
thought  which  they  exhibit,  that  the  value  of  his  book  con- 

^  sists.  For  his  direct  argument,  I  can  hardly  think  that  his 
saying,  so  repeatedly  and  so  barely  (this  repetition  without 
explanation  is  due,  it  is  to  be  observed,  to  his  method  of  de- 
monstration) that  we  cannot  think  or  know  an  object  without 
thinking  or  knowing  the  subject  (ourselves)  or  a  subject  (our- 
selves as  the  type)  with  it,  is  a  sufficient  account  of  what  I 
should  call  the  feehng  which  we  have,  that  what  we  know  could 
not  have  been  known  by  us  unless  there  had  been  in  it  some- 
thing making  it  possible  to  be  known,  or  fit  to  be  known,  or 
the  possible  matter  for  future  knowledge,  or  however  we  like 
to  express  ourselves.  And  in  the  same  manner  when  he  tells 
us  that  it  is  not  the  object  of  our  knowledge,  but  ourselves  as 

*  Psychology,  page  44,  et  passim. 


IV.] 


terrier's   INSTITUTES   OF   METAPHTSIC. 


55 


knowing  or  apprehending  that  object,  that  we  know,  he  seems 
too  much  to  forget  ttat  he  has  got  to  give  an  account  of  the 
second  knowing  which  he  speaks  of,  or  the  apprehendingy  which 
at  least  must  be  of  the  object  without  an  apprehended  subject 
going  with  it.  ' 

Whether  then  Mr  Ferrier  has  thrown  any  fresh  light  upon 
this  question  by  the  particular  language  in  which  he  has  chosen 
to  speak  about  it,  I  am  doubtful ;  but  he  seems  to  me,  as  I  have 
said,  to  have  the  very  great  merit  of  seeing  the  problem  clearly. 

The  examination  of  the  nature  of  knowledge,  when  we  start 
from  the  logical  or  philosophical  point  of  departure,  may  very 
conveniently  take  the  form  of  an  observation  or  consideration 
of  the  difference  between  what  on  the  one  side  is  known,  and 
what  on  the  other  side  is  unknown — not  merely  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  because  we  do  not  happen  to  know  it — but  unknown  on 
account  of  something  in  its  own  nature,  or  unknowable.  For 
the  observation  of  the  difference,  we  may  suppose  this  latter; 
and  we  may  then  add  to  it  in  thought  what  suggests  itself  to  us 
as  necessary  in  order  to  convert  that  which  cannot  be  the  mat- 
ter (or  in  this  sense  '  subject ')  of  knowledge  into  that  which  can. 
The  simplest  expression  of  this  is  to  say,  that  for  anything,  what- 
soever it  is,  to  be  possibly  the  subject  (in  this  sense)  of  knowledge, 
it  must  have  definite  qualities  or  properties,  and  definite  rela- 
tions to  other  things,  and  must  be  such  that  one  and  another 
thing  may  be  said  or  predicated  intelligibly  about  it.  What 
is  then  not  possibly  the  subject  of  knowledge  in  this  sense  is 
what  does  not  possess  the  above  character.  And  the  tracing 
the  difference  between  this  and  that  which  on  the  other  hand 
is  subject  (in  this  sense)  of  knowledge,  is  the  transforming,  in 
thought  and  by  successive  steps,  a  something  supposed  of  the 
latter  kind  into  the  universe  or  system  of  things  as  we  know  it. 

Mr  Ferrier  has  in  very  clear  and  vigorous  language  dis- 
tinguished between  this  with  its  analogous  processes  and  the 
misapprehensions  of  them  which  are  very  probable,  and  are 
chiefly  of  two  kinds :  the  one  that  this  process  of  logic  or 
thought  is  an  actual,  historical  (imagined)  production  on  our 
part  of  things  from  nothing,  a  creation :  the  other  that  in  such 
processes,  alongside  of  our  thought,  we  are  to  suppose  things 
already  existing  as  we  know  them.    Both  these  misapprehen- 


56 


FERRIER's  institutes  of   METAPHYSltf.        [CHAP. 


\- 


sions  are  in  reality  confusions  between  what  I  have  called  the 
philosophical  and  the  phenomenalist  point  of  view,  of  the  kind 
which  I  have  endeavoured  to  prevent.     Against  the  first  of 
these  Mr  Ferrier  has  well  shown  how  the  distinction,  in  the 
above-named   processes,   is  not  between   existence  and  non- 
existence, between  something  and  nothing,  but  between  known- 
ness,  knowableness,  knowable  existence  and  what  he  (in  his 
language)  calls  'nonsense'  or  'the  contradictory*.    Against  the 
latter  he  has  shown  that  the  double  point  of  view  merely  results 
from  confusion  of  thought. 
'^      Mr  Ferrier  claims  for  himself  much  merit  for  his  '  agnoi- 
ology*,  or  theory  of  ignorance,  of  that  kind  which  Sir  William 
Hamilton  is  very  fond  of  claiming,  namely,  that  he  is  here 
original,  and  the  first  to  break  new  ground.    This  merit  does 
not  seem  to  me  so  great  in  philosophy  as  in  some  other 
branches  of  thought  or  literature,  for  the  reason  that  the  pro- 
blems of  philosophy  are  all  so  intertwined  together,  that  from 
the  first,  in  the  touching  of  any  of  them,  they  have  all  been 
more  or  less  touched,  and  to  distinguish  between  what  is  really 
new,  and  what  is  only  the  same  thing  in  other  words,  is  diffi- 
\  cult.     But  the  calling  attention  to  the  difference  between  igno- 
rance (so  to  call  it)  of  the  knowable  and  that  mere  nescience 
(so  to  call  it)  which  must  be  the  state  of  mind  in  regard  of  that 
which  is  not  matter  of  knowledge,  is  an  observation  of  much 
importance.    If  borne  in  mind,  it  would  prevent  much  foolish 
talk  in  depreciation  of  human  intelligence. 

I  will  repeat  summarily  the  view  which  I  have  given  above 
myself,  and  I  think  Mr  Ferrier,  with  a  manner  of  expression  of 
his  own,  and  a  more  ambitious,  perhaps  a  better,  method,  does 
not  in  its  great  features  differ  from  it. 

The  course  of  objective  knowledge  is  the  growth  of  the  non- 
ego,  which  from  the  first,  in  conjunction  with  the  ego,  we  are 
conscious  of,  into  distinctness.  The  spring  or  start  in  this 
course  is  given  by  (what  I  suppose  we  must  consider  a  pri- 
mary fact  of  all  intelligence)  the  attribution,  in  the  first 
instance,  to  each  one  of  these  members  of  the  form  of  thought 
under  which  we  view  the  other:  i  e.  the  attribution  of  objective 
knowableness  to  our  felt  self,  and  the  attribution  of  subjective 
knowingness  or  mind  to  the  non-ego.    The  latter  of  these  two- 


I 
i 


I 


'     i 


mi 

) 


IV.] 


FERRIER  S  INSTITUTES  OF   METAPHT8IC. 


57 


facts  is  the  spring  of  objective  knowledge.  Sensation  simply 
and  of  itself,  considered  in  its  relation  to  knowledge  or  the  later 
and  grown  intellectual  sensation,  might  be  regarded  (Mr  Fer- 
rier has  spoken  well  about  this)  as  the  subjective  state  answer- 
ing to  which,  as  object  or  quasi-object,  stands  what  I  have 
generally  called  confusion  or  a  non-ego  of  confusion,  what  Mr 
Ferrier  calls  nonsense  or  the  contradictory.  It  is  the  projection 
of  ourself  into  this  confusion  which  begins  to  generate  order  in 
it.  It  is  the  supposition  of  an  unity  in  one  and  another  phase 
of  the  non-ego,  as  we  are  conscious  of  them,  which  unity  is 
really  a  projection  or  extension  of  our  subjective  selves,  or  taking 
ourselves,  the  first  and  most  immediate  thing  we  are  conscious 
of,  as  the  type  of  existence,  which  makes  us  (in  psychological 
language)  co-ordinate  our  sensations  into  masses  which  suggest 
to  us  thiTigs ;  which  gives  law  to  the  disorderly  mass,  and  really 
(in  Dr  Whewell's  language)  informs  (gives  form  to)  or  forms 
the  sensation.  The  continual  correction  of  this  by  successive 
experiences  divides  our  knowledge  into  two  lines,  or  generates 
on  the  one  side  what  I  have  called  the  phenomenalist  view,  on 
the  other  that  of  the  higher  philosophy.  For  a  complete  view 
of  things,  we  in  our  most  developed  and  instructed  thought 
suppose  as  much  mind  in  the  objective  universe  as  we  did  in 
our  first  and  most  uninstructed  thought.  The  difference  is, 
that  we  now  suppose  an  embodiment  of  the  thought  or  mind 
which  stands  between  it  and  our  thought  or  mind :  the  pheno- 
menal view  is  the  resting,  more  or  less,  in  this  embodiment, 
without  the  thought  of  its  suggesting  anything  beyond :  the 
supposing  it  a  quasi-absolute,  an  ultimate  fact  so  far  as  we  are 
concerned,  either  for  some  purposes  or  entirely  and  for  all.  If 
the  former,  there  is  simply  that  view  which  is  true  so  far  as  it 
goes,  and  is  the  basis  of  all  physical  science :  if  the  latter,  there 
is  what  I  have  called  positivism  or  mis-phenomenalism:  a 
simple  negation  of  everything  beyond  phenomenalism. 

Knowledge  from  the  philosophical  point  of  view  is  a  com- 
munication of  mind  with  mind  through  an  embodiment  or 
result  of  the  one,  analyzed  or  traced  back  out  of  embodiment  or 
result  into  thought  again,  by  the  other.  The  process  or  manner 
of  this  analysis  may  be  variously  described :  it  is  the  mistaken, 
but  continuously  corrected,  attribution  to  what  we  are  con- 


58 


ferrier's  institutes  of  metaphysic.     [chap. 


IV.] 


FERRIERS  institutes  OF   METAPHTSIC. 


59 


scious  of  as  different  from  ourselves,  of  the  mind  which  is  in 
ourselves :   one  thing  after  another  detaches  itself  from  this 
supposition,  and  is  considered  to  exist  what  we  call  merely  phe- 
nomenally, and  by  the  continuance  of  this  process  the  mind 
which  we  contemplate  is  set  further  and  further  off  from  us : 
but  the  entire  view,  if  we  think  rightly,  never  alters  or  should 
Salter.     The  process  of  knowledge  again,  logically  viewed,  is  a 
continued  (logical)  creation  of  an  orderly  universe  out  of  what, 
but  for  knowledge,  has  no  properties  and  cannot  have  anything 
thought  or  said  about  it:  but  this  creation  is  always  felt  or 
understood  by  us  not  as  a  creation,  but  as  a  recognition :  while 
we  are  really  throwing  our  own  mind  into  the  inform  (unformed) 
matter  of  sensation,  what  we  think  is,  that  we  are  meeting 
another  mind.     The  great  problem  of  the  higher  philosophy,  as 
distinguished  from  simple  epistemology  or  philosophy  of  know- 
ledge, is  to  examine  the  validity  of  this  feeling,  understanding, 
thought,  that  we  do  not,  in  knowing  or  perceiving,  make  things, 
\  but  find  them.     There  is  a  phenomenal  outward  universe,  com- 
municating with  our  brain  and  nerves,  an  environment  corre- 
sponding to  our  organized  or  corporeal  life;  but  when  we  say, 
the  one  thing  which  we  are  certain  of  is  our  consciousness,  in 
the  first  instance,  only,  and  the  development  of  that;  does  the 
manner  of  this  development  suggest  any  antithesis,  anything 
correspondent  to,  or  we  may  say,  communicating  with,  that, 
through  and  beyond  phenomenalism  ?  and  does  it  suggest  such 
reasonably  ? 

We  are  really  conscious  of  a  non-ego  as  of  an  ego,  we  are 
not  therefore  the  only  existence,  and  from  this  it  seems  to  me 
to  follow,  that  we  have  reason  in  considering  that  in  evolving 
(by  thought),  order  and  character,  or  somethingness  out  of  mere 
disorder — objects  out  of  prae-objectal  possibility — we  are  not  the 
only  mind  at  work :  as  much  as  we  feel  ourselves  mind,  we  feel 
.  ourselves  one  mind,  and  that  there  may  be  others.  We  know 
things  therefore  not  only  because  we  are,  but  because  there  are 
things  which  can  be  known:  because  there  are  things  which 
have  in  them  the  quality  or  character  of  knowableness,  i.e.  a 
counterpart  or  adaptedness  to  reason :  which  is,  however  we 
like  to  describe  it,  the  same  as  a  mind  or  reason  so  far  insub- 
stantiated  or  embodied.    I  do  not  wish  to  follow  this  out  into 


any  conclusions  of  Natural  Theology :  only  to  indicate,  that  with 
respect  to  this,  is  the  real  difference  of  view  in  all  philosophy. 

The  difference  as  to  philosophical  view  which  is  a  read  and 
fundamental  one,  whereas  almost  all  differences  which  cannot 
be  resolved  into  this  have  in  them  more  or  less  of  vagueness  and 
mutual  misunderstanding,  is  that  between  what  I  have  called 
'positivism'  on  the  one  side,  and  on  the  other  a  view  contrasted 
with  this,  which  has  no  single  name,  though  in  application  to 
ethics  I  should  call  it  'idealism'.  The  point  of  the  difference  is 
that  in  the  former  we  look  upon  what  we  can  find  out  by  phy- 
sical research  as  ultimate  fact,  so  far  as  we  are  concerned,  and 
upon  conformity  with  it  as  the  test  of  truth :  so  that  nothing  is 
admitted  as  true  except  so '  far  as  it  follows  by  some  process 
of  inference  from  this.  In  opposition  to  this,  the  contrasted 
view  is  to  the  effect,  that  for  philosophy,  for  our  entire  judg- 
ment about  things,  we  must  go  beyond  this,  or  rather  go  further 
back  than'  it,  the  ultimate  fact  reallt/  (however  for  the  purposes 
of  physical  science  we  may  assume  the  former)  for  us — the  basis 
upon  which  all  rests — being  not  that  things  exist,  but  that  we 
know  them,  i.e.  think  of  them  as  existing:  the  order  of  things 
in  this  view  is  not,  existence  first,  and  then  knowledge  with 
regard  to  this  or  to  parts  of  it  arising  in  whatever  manner;  but 
knowledge  first,  involving  or  implying  the  existence  of  what  is 
known,  but  logically  at  least,  prior  to  it,  and  conceivably  more 
extensive  than  it,  and  not  all  meeting  with  application.  In  the 
former  view,  knowledge  about  things  is  looked  upon  as  a  possi- 
bly supervening  accident  to  them  or  of  them:  in  the  latter 
view,  their  knowableness  is  a  part,  and  the  most  important 
part,  of  their  reality  or  essential  being.  In  the  former  view 
mind  is  supposed  to  follow,  desultorily  and  accidentally,  after 
matter  of  fact:  in  the  latter  view  mind  or  consciousness  begins 
with  recognizing  itself  as  a  part  of  an  entire  supposed  matter 
of  fact  or  universe,  and  next  as  correspondent,  in  its  subjective 
character,  to  the  whole  of  this  besides  as  object,  while  the  un- 
derstanding of  this  latter  as  known,  germinates  into  the  notion 
of  the  recognition  of  other  mind  or  reason  in  it. 

The  various  distinctions,  as  between  'sensualism'  and  'ideal- 
ism'— ^between  'inductive'  and  'intuitive*,  'a  posteriori'  and  'a 
priori',  philosophy — ^and  others,  represent  so  far  a  real  and  neces- 


60 


fermee's  institutes  of  metaphtsic.      [chap. 


IV.] 


FERRIERS   INSTITUTES   OF   METAPHYSIC. 


61 


sary  conflict  of  thought  as  they  embody,  each  of  them,  more  or 
less  of  the  above  distinction  or  contrast ;  and  not  more. 

This  may  be  a  convenient  place  for  a  word  or  two  upon  a 
point,  in  the  treating  of  which  I  shall  refer  not  only  to 
Mr  Ferrier,  but  by  anticipation  to  one  or  two  books  hereafter  to 
be  noticed,  as  those  of  Sir  William  Hamilton  and  Mr  Mill. 
This  is  the  point  of  the  relativeness  of  knowledge,  and  the 
question  of '  things  in  themselves*. 

There  seems  a  good  deal  of  misapprehension  and  confusion 
in  people's  minds  about  this.  To  speak  first  about  *  things  in 
themselves*. 

Our  knowledge  may  be  contemplated  in  either  of  two  ways, 
or,  to  use  other  words,  we  may  speak  in  a  double  manner  of  the 
*  object*  of  knowledge.  That  is,  we  may  either  use  language 
thus,  we  know  a  thing,  a  man,  &c.:  or  we  may  use  it  thus:  we 
know  such  and  such  things  about  the  thing,  the  man,  &c. 
Language  in  general,  following  its  true  logical  instinct,  dis- 
tinguishes between  these  two  applications  of  the  notion  of 
knowledge,  the  one  being  yvwvai,  noscere,  kennen,  connaitre,  the 
other  being  elBivai,  scii-e,  wissen,  savoir.  In  the  origin,  the  for- 
mer may  be  considered  more  what  I  have  called  phenomenal 

it  is  the  notion  of  knowledge  as  acquaintance  or  familiarity  with 
what  is  known :  which  notion  is  perhaps  more  akin  to  the  phe- 
nomenal bodily  communication,  and  is  less  purely  intellectual 
than  the  other ;  it  is  the  kind  of  knowledge  which  we  have  of  a 
thing  by  the  presentation  of  it  to  the  senses  or  the  representa- 
tion of  it  in  a  picture  or  type,  a  '  vorstellung*.  The  other,  which 
is  what  we  express  in  judgments  or  propositions,  what  is  em- 
bodied in  *begriflfe*  or  concepts  without  any  necessary  imagina- 
tive representation,  is  in  its  origin  the  more  intellectual  notion 
of  knowledge. 

Thare  is  no  reason  however  why  we  should  not  express 
our  knowledge,  whatever  its  kind,  in  either  manner,  provided 
only  we  do  not  confusedly  express  it,  in  the  same  proposition 
\  or  piece  of  reasoning,  in  both.  I  am  not  sure  whether  Mr 
Ferrier,  in  general  so  clear,  is  not  in  this  particular  otherwise, 
when  he  speaks  of  our  knowledge  as  the  knowing  ourselves  as 
knowing  or  apprehending,  or  the  knowing  that  we  know  and 
apprehend,  the  object  of  our  knowledge.    I  have  said  that  he 


seems  to  lose  sight  of  the  necessity  of  giving  an  account  of 
the  last-mentioned  knowledge,  or  apprehension.  Is  the  word 
*  know '  in  the  two  parts  of  the  sentence  used  in  the  same  or 
in  different  meanings  ? 

It  appears  to  me  that  the  notion  of  a  difference  between 
things  in  themselves  and  things  as  we  know  them  arises  in  the 
main  from  the  confusion  together  of  these  two  views  of  know- 
ledge. If  by  knowledge  we  mean  acquaintance  or  familiarity,  V 
kenntniss,  then  we  know  the  thing  in  itself,  partially  indeed  and 
indistinctly,  but  still  in  the  same  manner  in  which  we  or  any 
intelligence  must  always  go  on  knowing  it  till  the  knowing  is 
exhausted  and  the  kernel  (or  rather  central  point)  reached.  If 
we  begin,  as  to  the  thing,  with  this  notion  of  knowing,  we 
must  keep  this  notion  to  the  last.  We  must  not  suppose  that 
however  we  may  go  on  making  acquaintance  with  the  thing 
till  we  know  it  in  this  way  thoroughly,  there  is  still  something 
to  be  known  ahmi  it  which  is  the  real  and  important  know- 
ledge, and  which  cannot  be  attained  to.  What  is  defective  here 
is  not  our  knowledge,  but  our  logic.  ^ 

Perhaps  the  mistake,  as  I  think  it,  most  frequently  pre- 
sents itself  when  there  is  taken,  in  the  beginning,  the  other  view 
of  knowledge.  Here  I  must  make  a  preliminary  remark  on  the 
use  of  the  terms  *  subject*  and  '  object*. 

If  we  wish  to  try  the  clearness  of  a  philosopher's  thought,  it 
seems  to  me  that  the  crucial  test  is  his  use  of  the  term  '  object' 
in  application  to  knowledge.  ■ 

*  Subject'  and  'object',  in  their  common  application  to  know-^ 
ledge,  though  they  form  an  antithesis  in  use,  do  not  form  one 
in  proper  signification.  Or,  in  other  words,  they  are  not  proper 
correlatives.  The  object  is  not  the  object  of  the  subject,  or 
vice  verssL  I,  the  knower  or  intelligence,  am  the  subject  of  the 
knowledge,  because  the  knowledge,  here,  is  considered  a  quality 
or  property  attaching  to  me  or  which  I  possess.  What  I  know 
is  the  object  of  the  knowledge  because  the  knowing,  here,  is 
considered  an  action  on  my  part,  not  a  quality.  The  two 
terms  are  therefore,  in  different  views,  relatives  to  the  know- 
ledge, and  not  properly  correlatives  of  each  other.  They  are 
only  antithetic  in  use.  ,  ^ 

The  appropriation  of  the  term  'subject  of  knowledge.'  to  the 


62 


ferbier's  institutes  of  metaphtsic.      [chap. 


IV.] 


FERRIERS   INSTITUTES   OF   METAPHTSIC. 


63 


knowing  intelligence  has,  it  so  happens,  damaged  philosophical 
thought  in  this  manner,  that  it  has  interfered  with  the  appli- 
cation of  it  in  various  other  ways  in  which  it  was  needed. 
When  we  speak  of  knowledge  in  that  which  I  gave  as  the 
second  view  of  it,  as  the  knowing  this  and  that  ahcmt  a  thing, 
we  want  the  term  '  subject '  (as  it  i^  used  in  logic)  to  express 
the  thing  about  which  what  is  known  (the  proper  'object'  of 
the  knowledge)  is  known.     Using  it  now  in  this  sense  (I  have, 
where  necessaiy,  done  so  before)  I  think  that  the  confusion  which 
I  have  above  alluded  to  as  to  '  things  in  themselves  *  arises  from 
this,  that  after,  with  the  meaning  of  knowledge  which  I  am 
now  supposing,  we  have  known  (if  it  is  so)  about  the  thing  all 
that  there  is  to  be  known,  we  still,  mistakenly,  think  there  is 
something  wanting  unless  we  know,  with  the  first  sort  of  know- 
ledge or  that  of  acquaintance,  the  thing  which  all  the  other 
knowledge  was  about.     But  that  thing,  supposing  we  use  such 
language  about  it,  was  itself  no  object  of  knowledge,  and  never 
entered  in  thought  as  such,  or  even  possibly  sucL     The  thing 
in  this  view  of  knowledge,  'is  all  that  can  be  known  about  it',  and 
when  we  have  come  to  this,  we  have  come  to  the  end,  not  only  of 
V  our  knowledge,  but  of  all  possible  knowledge,  in  this  direction. 
The  notion  of  the  relativeness  of  knowledge  is  to  be  con- 
sidered much  in  the  same  manner.    There  is  little  significance 
in  saying  that  knowledge  is  'relative'.     It  is  itself  a  relation ; 
between  the  knowing  mind  and  the  object  kno^-n:  and  this 
relation  arguing  a  prior  one  between  the  mind  as  capable  of 
knowledge  on  the  one  side  and  the  matter  of  knowledge  as, 
whether  actually  known  or  not,  knowable,  on  the  other :   it 
shows,  that  is,  an  existing  constitution  or  state  of  things  to 
which  the  knowing  mind  and  the  matter  of  knowledge  both 
belong.    And  more  than  this,  knowledge  not  only  is  a  relation, 
but  it  is  of  relations  or  related  things :  that,  of  which  or  about 
which  the  knowledge  is,  must  be  constituted  somehow,  must 
have  particularity  and  character  involving  relations  to  other 
things,  or  qualities  having  relations  to  each  other,  in  order  for 
knowledge  to  be  possible  of  or  about  it.     The  unconditioned, 
unparticular,  unqualitied,  unpropertied,  cannot  be  known,  there 
being  no  means  of  distinguishing  it,  and  nothing  to  be  known 
about  it. 


So  far  then  as  we  talk  of  knowledge  in  general,  or  from  the 
logical  point  of  view,  as  being  relative,  what  is  really  meant  is 
that  it  is  itself  a  relation,  and  is  knowledge  of  the  relative  as 
variously  related. 

So  far  as  we  speak  of  our  own  knowledge,  or  the  knowledge 
of  any  minds  of  supposed  particular  constitution,  being  rela- 
tive, the  notion  is  different,  and  what  is  meant  then  is,  *  relative 
to  that  constitution*.  And  here  it  is  important  to  observe 
what,  in  or  about  the  knowledge,  is  relative  in  this  manner. 
The  meaning  of  'relative'  here  is  'different'  (more  or  less)  'ac- 
cording as  the  intelligent  constitution  is  different' — varying  with 
that.  But  in  this  case,  it  is  not  the  knowledge  proper  which 
differs,  but  what  we  might  rather  call  the  means  of  it ;  or,  if 
we  prefer  the  language,  it  is  not  the  important  and  higher 
part  of  the  knowledge,  but  the  lower  and  subsidiary. 

Sir  William  Hamilton's  language  is,  that  all  that  can  be 
possibly  known  is  not  existence,  but  modes  of  existence — and 
only  some  of  these  modes,  according  to  the  particular  consti- 
tution of  the  knowing  mind — and  then  not  the  modes  them- 
selves but  only  modifications  of  them,  determined  by  the  facul- 
ties making  up  that  constitution.  We  do  not  know  existence, 
or  the  things  themselves,  but  only  modifications  of  some,  out 
of  many  possible,  modifications  of  them\ 

This  seems  to  me  to  be  a  very  vain  multiplication  of  logical 
barriers  between  our  intelligence  and  the  thing  which  we  suppose 
ourselves  to  know.  What  is  added  by  the  particularity  of  our 
intelligence  to  the  general  fact  of  knowledge  is,  undoubtedly,  that 
we  know  through  sense  (under  Sir  William  Hamilton's  modifica- 
tions, see  the  quotation)  and  that  we  know,  we  may  say  for  conve- 
nience, through  some  senses,  it  being  possible  for  us  to  conceive  a 
larger  number  (we  know  some  therefore  only,  in  Sir  William 
Hamilton's  language,  of  the  modes  of  existence).  This  is  what  I 
have  in  other  places  expressed  by  saying,  that  we  are,  whatever 


1  Lectures  on  Metaphysics,  p.  148,  ed.  2.  *  All  our  koowledge  is  only  relative. 
It  is  relative,  i^,  because  existence  is  not  cognisable  absolutely  and  in  itself,  but 
only  in  special  modes  :  2°,  because  these  modes  can  be  known  only  if  they  stand 
in  a  certain  relation  to  our  faculties  :  and  3°,  because  the  modes,  thus  relative  to 
our  faculties,  are  presented  to,  and  known  by,  the  mind  only  under  modifica« 
tions  determined  by  these  faculties  themselves*. 


64 


ferrier's  institutes  of  metaphtsic.       [chap. 


IV.] 


ferrier's  institutes  op  metaphysio. 


65 


we  may  be  besides,  phenomenal  or  corporeal  beings,  communi- 
cating, as  such,  with  a  phenomenal  or  physical  universe,  and 
communicating  with  it  in  certain  definite  ways,  which  ways  we 
might  conceive  multiplied.  It  appears  to  me  that  Sir  William 
Hamilton's  description  of  all  this  as  '  our  knowledge  being 
relative'  is  language  likely  to  puzzle  and  confuse  both  physics 
and  logic.  It  seems  to  imply  that  if  we  had  more  senses  (a 
special  organ,  e.  g.  for  the  perception  of  magnetism,  as  the  eye 
for  that  of  light)  our  present  physical  knowledge  would  cease 
to  be  real,  its  reality  depending  upon  our  having  the  particular 
senses,  and  no  others,  which  we  have.  Whereas  I  conclude 
that  the  conception  of  the  physical  universe  which  we  form  in 
accordance  with  our  present  sensive  powers,  though  it  might 
possibly  be  absorbed  and  altered  in  form  by  an  addition  to 
them,  is  and  must  ever  remain  real  and  valid  so  far  as  it  goes. 
In  the  same  manner  this  *  relativeness  of  our  knowledge'  seems 
to  imply  that  our  knowledge,  as  through  sense,  must  be  con- 
sidered as  what  I  should  call  incommensurable,  that  is,  out  of 
relation,  non-communicable,  with  that  of  any  conceivable  in- 
telligence which  was  not  attained  through  sense,  like  ours.  As 
the  other  view  puzzles  physics,  this  seems  to  me  to  puzzle 
philosophy  and  logic.  My  view  is,  that  though  we  not  only 
perceive,  but  even  more  or  less,  think,  by  means  of  sense,  yet 
that  the  results  of  our  thought,  so  far  as  they  are  to  be  held 
as  knowledge  or  true,  must  be  valid  for,  and  intelligible  to,  and 
communicable  with,  all  conceivable  intelligence,  by  whatever 
means,  different  from  ours,  it  may  have  attained  to  its  results. 
Knowledge  is  one  and  the  same. 

It  seems  to  me  that  the  proper  statement  of  the  fact  is, 
that  knowledge,  which  as  I  have  said  is  itself  a  relation  and 
implies  for  its  significance  a  relation  or  particularity  in  things, 
comes  into  existence  in  our  case  owing  to  what  we  may  call,  if 
we  like  it,  a  relation  between  our  intelligent  selves  and  our 
phenomenal  organism,  and  to  a  second  definite  relation  between 
the  parts  of  this  organism  and  the  constituents  of  the  material 
world.  Whether  we  like  or  not  to  use  the  word  '  relation'  in 
this  multiplied  manner,  is  a  matter  of  description,  carrying  no 
consequences.  We  may  express,  if  we  like  it,  by  the  term 
'relative*  properly  understood,  what  I  have  endeavoured  to 


express  by  *  phenomenalism.'  I  have  called  the  phenomenalist 
view  an  ahstractioUy  by  which  I  have  meant,  that  though  true 
in  its  proper  place,  it  must  not  be  taken  to  represent  the  entire 
of  what  we  ought  to  think,  and  becomes  erroneous  if  it  is  so 
taken.  If  the  relativeness  of  our  particular  knowledge  is  un- 
derstood as  expressing  this,  I  have  nothing  to  say  against  it : 
nor  again  if  it  be  taken  to  mean  simply  that  our  generic  intel- 
ligence, as  compared  with  that  of  one  and  another  sort  of  ani- 
mals, or  as  compared  with  that  of  conceivable  incorporeal  beings, 
is  particular,  our  own,  in  the  means  and  manner  of  it.  No  one 
could  doubt  this. 

With  regard  to  the  relativeness  of  knowledge  in  general, 
as  Sir  William  Hamilton  has  exhibited  it  in  the  first  of  his  three 
reasons  why  knowledge  is  relative,  I  would  refer  to  what  I  have 
said  about  'things  in  themselves'.  The  'thing  in  itself  if  we 
use  that  language,  or  '  existence '  if  we  use  Sir  William  Hamil- 
ton's, may  be  considered  either  as  a  simply  logical  entity,  a 
manner  of  expression  necessary  for  us  because  we  wish  to  con- 
sider knowledge  as  the  knowing  about  something,  the  forming 
of  judgments,  scientia — in  which  case  it  is  not  the  object  of 
knowledge  at  all,  but  simply  the  logical  subject  of  the  judg- 
ments, and  the  notion  of  reality  attaches  not  to  it,  but  to  the 
sum  of  what  is  and  can  be  known  about  it :  or  it  may  be  con- 
sidered as  the  intended  object  of  the  knowledge,  what  the  mind, 
acting  in  the  way  of  intuition,  apprehension,  kenntniss  (not, 
t.e.  judgment  abou{)  is  always  aiming  at,  to  whatever  degree  it 
succeeds.  'Existence,'  says  Sir  William  Hamilton,  in  the  pas- 
sage already  cited,  '  is  not  cognisable  absolutely  and  in  itself, 
but  only  in  special  modes.*  If  cognition  is  taken  in  the  former 
view,  then  the  sum  of  the  modes  of  the  existence  is  the  exist- 
ence itself,  as  an  object  of  knowledge,  and  there  is  no  relative- 
ness, though  there  may  be  partialness,  some  of  the  modes  only 
being  known,  and  not  others.  And  this  view  is  what  cognition 
must  be  taken  in  for  the  word  '  absolute'  to  have  its  proper 
meaning,  antithetical  to  'relative'.  If  it  is  taken  in  the  latter 
view,  absolute  only  means  'complete',  and  cognisable  'completely' 
cognisable.  The  supposition  that  existence  is  a  reality,  and  yet 
that  we  can  only  know  it  in  modes,  {i.e.  the  whole  supposition 
of  relativeness  of  knowledge)  seems  to  me  exactly  a  confusion 

5 


66 


ferrier's  institutes  of  metaphysic.      [chap. 


IT.] 


FERRIERS   INSTITUTES   OF   METAPHYSIC. 


67 


-I 


of  the  two  views  of  knowledge  (the  simultaneous  employment 
of  which  is  almost  a  sort  of  juggling)  which  I  have  described. 
Supposing  us  to  have  exhausted,  in  knowledge,  all  the  modes  of 
existence,  we  are  told,  you  know  all  about  it,  but  you  do  not 
know  it.  In  reality  acquaintance  with,  intuition  or  apprehen- 
sion or  comprehension  of,  it,  and  judging  correctly  and  exhaust- 
ively this,  that,  and  the  other  thing,  about  it,  are  two  ways  of 
expressing  the  same  thing,  and  either  of  them  are  definitions 
of  knowledge :  the  difficulties  as  to  relativeness  seem  to  me  to 
\  arise  simply  from  a  confusion  between  the  two. 

It  appears  to  me,  accordingly,  that  the  language  of  almost 
all  the  Kantist-speaking  philosophers  has  been  a  language  of 
uncertainty  between  the  saying,  It  is  absurd  to  talk  of  know- 
ing things  in  themselves,  or,  which  is  the  same  thing,  of  con- 
ceiving the  unconditioned,  and  the  saying,  It  is  vainly  presump- 
tuous to  think  of  doing  so.  The  two  ways  of  speaking  involve 
entirely  different  views.  •  K  the  impossibility  of  conceiving  the 
unconditioned  is  logical,  because  there  is  nothing  to  conceive, 
(the  unconditioned  being  merely  a  logical  figment,  for  certain 
purposes,  of  the  knowable  divested  of  what  makes  it  know- 
able)  then  the  refraining  from  the  attempt  to  conceive  it  is  no 
Tpstraint,  or  subjugation,  or  submission  of  the  intellect  to 
limits  traced  out  for  it,  which  it  must  not  transcend:  such 
attempts  then  are  simply  mistakes,  and  there  is  no  reason  why 
people  should  not  find  out  the  mistakenness  of  them  (though 
of  course  we  may  tell  them  they  will  find  it)  by  making  the 
attempts,  and  seeing  the  absurdity  which  results.  All  the 
language  about  submitting  or  restraining  the  intellect  belongs 
to  the  other  view,  in  which  the  impossibility  of  conceiving  the 
unconditioned  is  supposed  not  in  this  manner  logical,  but  an 
accident  of  our  particular  intelligence.  We  are  then,  sup- 
posedly, bound  down  to  certain  ways  of  viewing  things  which 
we  see  to  be  particular  ways,  being  able,  so  far  as  this,  to 
criticize,  i.e.  to  rise  above,  our  particular  intelligence,  while, 
at  the  same  time,  we  are  unable  to  conceive  how  the  things 
can  be  seen  in  any  other  way  than  these  particular  ones,  or 
what  they,  independent  of  the  ways  of  seeing  them,  are.  This, 
of  course,  puts  the  intellect  in  a  state  of  unstable  equilibrium, 
of  a  sort  of  war  with  itself,  of  struggle,  effort,  and  difficulty. 


All  those  forms  of  idealism  which  represent  the  present  state 
of  things  in  which  we  are  as  ^ phcenomenaV,  in  the  original  mean- 
ing of  the  term,  beyond  and  through  which  we  may  form  an 
imperfect  conception  of  unseen  realities,  embody  more  or 
less  this  view.  And  while,  as  I  think,  every  supposition  of 
religion  necessitates  this  view  in  a, certain  measure,  there  is 
reason,  though  the  proceeding  is  not  one  with  which  I  have 
myself  much  sympathy,  in  the  endeavour,  for  the  interest  of 
definite  religion,  to  restrain  the  too  great  activity  of  the  intel- 
lect in  these  directions,  and  to  enforce  upon  it  moderation  and 
submission.  But  what  there  is  not  reason  in  is  the  endeavour 
to  reinforce  this  restraint  by  means  of  a  view  quite  inconsistent 
with  the  view  upon  which  the  notion  of  restraint  depends,  by 
means,  i.e.  of  the  view  which  I  have  given  above,  namely,  that 
the  attempt  to  conceive  anything  beyond  the  phenomenal 
world  is  merely  illogical  and  leads  to  nonsense. 

I  have  gone  into  this  however  rather  more  at  length  than  I 
meant  here. 

In  taking  leave  of  Mr  Ferrier,  I  would  say  again,  that  in 
giving  my  own  view  some  time  since,  and  supposing  his  to  be 
similar,  I  am  not  quite  certain  whether  I  am  justified.  He  is, 
I  think,  superfluously  occupied  in  making  his  demonstration 
inexpugnable,  and  scarcely,  I  think,  explains  sufficiently  the 
exact  point  of  some  of  his  expressions.  Knowledge,  in  my 
view,  is  the  mingling  our  own  consciousness  with  a  certain  (so 
to  call  it)  prae-obj  octal  matter  of  knowledge  of  which  we  are  so 
far  conscious,  as  that  it  is  that,  by  distinction  from  which  we 
know  ourselves:  and  it  is  this  mingling  which  generates  objects, 
or  converts  the  supposed  occasions  of  our  feelings,  a  continuous 
undigested  coninsion  otherwise,  into  things.  When  Mr  Ferrier 
says  that  we  think  the  subject  with  the  object,  I  rather  ques- 
tion the  term  'object'  in  this  application:  if,  till  the  subject  is 
added  to  it,  there  is  no  knowledge,  it  is  not  as  yet,  or  itself, 
the  object.  And  Mr  Ferrier  hardly  sufficiently  explains  whe- 
ther he  means  to  pass  from  the  notion  of  ourselves  as  knowing, 
or  from  knowledge  being  'knowledge  that  we  know*,  which  of 
itself,  I  think,  is  not  very  important,  to  the  notion  of  ourselves, 
or  part  of  our  selves,  known  in  the  object,  which  is  the  important 
one.     It  is  this  which  really  leads  on,  in  the  chain  of  thought,  to 

5-2 


68 


jfereieb's  iustitctes  of  metaphtsic.      [cuap. 


I 


III 


the  notion  of  knowledge  being  the  meeting,  through  the  inter- 
vention of  phenomenal  matter  and  the  conversion  of  it  into  in- 
tellectual objects,  with  the  thoughts,  proceeding  in  the  opposite 
direction,  of  mind  or  a  mind  like  our  own,  however  wider  and 
vaster.     This  is  my  version  of  Mr  Ferrier's  final  propositions. 

But  I  think  a  great  deal  of  time  is  wasted  in  discussing 
and  rediscussing  what  one  and  another  philosopher  means.  Or, 
granting  the  value  of  this  for  the  ancient  philosophers,  of 
whom  we  have  very  imperfect  remains,  I  think  we  may  very 
well  do  it  too  much  in  regard  of  the  modem  ones.  Philosophical 
language  is  very  uncertain,  and  it  is  a  good  thing,  in  some  points 
of  view,  that  it  is  so,  for  this  manifold  uncertainty  is  a  great 
security  against  mere  unmeaningness  in  the  language.  No  phi- 
losopher who  reflects  on  this  uncertainty,  but  must  feel  the  im- 
portance of  making  effort  to  set  before  both  himself  and  his 
readers  what  he  himself  means  by  the  terms  he  uses.  Nor  is 
any  logic  or  reasoning  in  a  philosophical  book  of  the  slightest 
value  without  special  care  given  in  this  respect.  But  beyond 
this,  a  philosopher's  view  will  probably  be  of  most  value  to  us 
by  our  conceiving  it  in  our  own  way,  provided  we  think  about 
it  bond  fide  and  without  putting  force  upon  it.  In  a  real 
philosopher,  the  ground  of  the  whole,  the  fundamental  view, 
is  something  very  hard,  if  possible,  to  put  into  words  and  which 
he  probably  labours  much  in  expressing,  and  perhaps  he  does 
this  by  using  various  manners  of  expression,  or  perhaps  he  may 
be  unwilling  to  mar  such  distinctness  of  expression  of  it  as  he 
may  have  attained  by  illustrations  of  it  which  may  lead  to  mis- 
apprehension. In  these  cases,  an  infinite  literature  may  be 
taken  up  in  discussing  and  rediscussing  what  he  meant.  The 
important  thing  is  how  far  what  he  meant  or  what  we  may  sup- 
pose him  to  have  meant  is  suggestive  of  what  is  the  truth. 

I  have  said  however  very  little  about  Mr  Ferrier's  book 
itself.  I  will  give  now  a  few  of  his  own  words,  with  comments 
on  them,  comparing  them  with  my  views. 

How  my  view  stands  iipo7i  the  whole  with  his  I  cannot  quite 
make  out.  His  manner  of  expression  is  so  exceedingly  differ- 
ent from  mine,  some  of  it  being  quite  unintelligible  to  me,  that 
whether  what  he  means  is  the  same  on  the  whole  as  what  I 
mean,  or  something  quite  different,  I  cannot  tell.     When  there- 


IV.] 


terrier's  institutes  of  metaphystc. 


69 


fore  I  say  that  I  agree  with  him,  and  that  what  he  says  seems 
to  me  right,  I  interpret  him  in  my  own  way,  and  if  any  one 
disputes  that  being  his  meaning,  I  have  no  care  to  maintain 
that  it  is.  What  I  say  then  is  not  applicable  to  him.  I  have 
observed  upon  the  inutility  of  lengthened  controversy  as  to 
whether  a  philosopher  means  this  or  that.  Suppose  him  to 
mean  either  or  both  or  neither,  and  let  us  see  only  how  what 
it  may  be  thought  be  means  helps  the  truth,  and  suggests 
thought  in  us. 

Mr  Ferrier  says*,  "  Philosophy  is  not  only  a  war,  but  it  is  a 
"  war  in  which  none  of  the  combatants  understands  the  grounds 
"  either  of  his  own  opinion  or  of  that  of  his  adversary :  or  sees 
"  the  roots  of  the  side  of  the  question  which  he  is  either  attack- 
"  ing  or  defending."  And  again ^  "Now,  no"  (philosophical)  "ques- 
"tion  comes  before  the  world  which  does  not  present  many 
"  disguises,  both  natural  and  artificial,  worn  one  above  another : 
*'  and  these  false  faces  are  continually  increasing. . .  It  may  be 
"  affirmed  with  certainty  that  no  man,  for  the  last  two  thousand 
"years,  has  seen  the  true  flesh-and-blood  countenance  of  a  single 
"  philosophical  problem."  Mr  Ferrier  expresses  himself  strongly, 
but  otherwise  this  his  starting-point  is  quite  mine.  Philoso- 
phical controversy  is  full  of  confusion,  and  this  is  one  great 
reason  of  resultlessness  of  it.  But  with  his  remedy  I  cannot  agree : 
that  is,  with  the  applicability  of  it.  We  want,  he  says,  strictlt/ 
reasoned  philosophy :  and  when  we  have  it,  we  shall  be  so  cer- 
tain that  we  have  it,  it  will  be  so  evidently  irrefragable,  that 
we  shall  take  our  ground  with  the  most  perfect  confidence  as 
against  all  possible  controversy.  His  own  Institutes,  Mr  Fer- 
rier considers,  furnish  such  a  philosophy,  and  the  language  of 
confidence  with  which  he  speaks  about  them  is  extraordinary. 

It  is  extraordinary,  because  his  first  proposition,  which  he 
takes  as  a  sort  of  axiom  to  build  the  rest  upon,  is,  as  we  have 
seen,  controverted  by  Mr  Herbert  Spencer  (and  in  fact  by  many 
more)  and  is  even  it  would  appear,  thought  to  require  support 
and  defence  by  Mr  Ferrier  himself. 

This  proposition  is,  that  the  act  of  knowledge  is  not  know- 
ledge simply  of  the  object  of  knowledge,  but  is  knowledge  of 


*  Page  6. 


Page  9. 


k 


70 


ferrier's  institutes  of  metaphysic.      [chap. 


IV.] 


ferrier's  institutes  of  metaphysic. 


71 


ourselves,  the  subject,  along  with  the  object,  and  as  knowing 
the  object. 

I  have  already  hinted  a  comment  or  two  on  this.  I  agree 
with  Mr  Ferrier.  Mr  Herbert  Spencer's  view  is  one  which  I 
may  possibly  touch  on  further  forward:  it  may  be  put,  as  I 
understand  it,  thus :  the  object  is  more  important  and  imme- 
diate to  knowledge  than  the  subject  is :  knowledge  must  have 
an  object,  but  it  may  be  conceived,  i.  e,  ^t  the  ultimate  point, 
as  without  a  subject :  in  knowledge  there  must  be  something 
known,  but,  conceivably,  and  for  a  moment,  there  may  be  know- 
ledge without  its  being  anybody's  knowledge,  without  anybody's 
thinking  or  feeling  it :  the  basal  fact  is  not  *  cogito',  not  sensa- 
tion or  consciousness,  but,  as  we  may  say,  *hoc  cogitatur',  or 
'cogitatur  de  hoc',  from  which,  though  still  in  my  view  'ergo 
sum'  may  be  concluded,  it  is  by  a  longer  process. 

I  am  not  going  to  discuss  this  point,  which  is  the  often 
discussed  one  of  the  nature  of  personality,  and  only  say,  that 
in  point  of  method  I  do  not  see  what  is  gained  by  Mr  Ferrier 
putting  a  system  of  philosophy  professedly  reasoned  in  such  a 
manner  as  to  preclude  all  controversy,  upon  a  point  thus  con- 
trovertible, however,  in  my  view,  he  may  be  right  upon  it. 

Interpreting  Mr  Ferrier,  as  I  have  said,  in  my  own  way, 
and  translating  him  into  my  own  language,  I  might  under- 
stand, by  this  master  proposition  guiding  our  whole  view  of 
knowledge,  what  I  should  express  as  follows :  that  knowledge 
is  this ;  thought,  justifying  itself  to  us  as  right  thought  (belief, 
if  any  choose  to  call  it)  of  ourselves  as  communicating,  ac- 
quainted, in  contact,  with  a  something  not  ourselves ;  but  this 
at  the  same  time  requires  the  accompanying  thought  (as  to 
which  I  do  not  know  whether  it  appears  in  any  form  in  Mr 
Ferrier)  of  ourselves  as  so  to  speak  extending  into  something 
not  ourselves,  or  having  a  being  partaking  of  that  which  is  not 
ourselves  besides  our  simple  being  in  virtue  of  which  we  think : 
this  is  what  I  have  called  our  phenomenal  or  corporeal  selves : 
this  second  thought  being  present,  it  is  seen  that  the  commu- 
nication, the  object  of  the  first  thought,  is  at  various  steps : 
communication  of  ourselves  as  thinking  with  thought,  and 
again  of  ourselves  as  phenomenal  with  physical  fact :  the  com- 
munication at  the  lower  stages  gives  us  what  I  have  called 


'phenomenalism*:  this  may  be  treated  by  itself,  as  knowledge  so  - 
far  as  it  goes  :  but  it  does  not  represent  an  entire  view  of  know- 
ledge, being  all  included  in  the  leading  thought  with  which  we 
began,  and  there  being  knowledge  above  and  beside  it. 

How  far  Mr  Ferrier's  view  is  really  intended  to  be  of  the 
nature  of  this,  which  is  mine,  those  who  read  him  and  me  must 

judge. 

The  valuable  point  in  Mr  Ferrier,  in  my  view,  is,  as  I  have 
said,  his  consistency  in  distinguishing  what  I  have  called  the 
philosophical  and  phenomenalist  view.  But  we  must  have  a 
transition  from  one  to  the  other,  though  we  must  be  careful 
what  transition :  and  in  reference  to  this  I  will  comment  on  a 
passage  of  his'.  "  That  which  we  call  '  V  is  the  object  of  intel- 
*'  lect  alone.  We  are  never  objects  of  sense  to  ourselves.  A  man 
"can  see  and  "touch  his  body,  but  he  cannot  see  and  touch 

"himself When  the  cognizance  of  self  is  laid  down  as  the 

"  condition  of  all  knowledge,  this  of  course  does  not  mean  that 
"  certain  objects  of  sense  (external  things,  to  wit)  are  apprehended 
"  through  certain  o^/ier  objects  of  sense  (our  own  bodies,  namely), 
"  for  such  a  statement  would  be  altogether  futile.  It  would  leave 
"  the  question  precisely  where  it  found  it."  This  is  important  and 
true,  true,  I  think,  as  against  views  of  Sir  William  Hamilton 
and  Mr  Mansel  which  I  have  touched  on,  but  we  must  take 
care  of  overstatement.  What  is  the  meaning  of  'our  own 
bodies'?  Taking  'external  things'  as  our  type  of  'objects  of 
sense',  our  own  bodies  are  not,  except  subsequently  and  par- 
tially, objects  of  sense  to  us  in  this  way. 

I  will  not  dwell  upon  this,  having  already  spoken  a  good  deal 
on  the  subject  in  another  reference.  It  appears  to  me  that  Sir 
William  Hamilton  and  probably  others  are  obnoxious  to  what 
Mr  Ferrier  says  here:  but  it  seems  to  me  that  he  is  in  error  m 
speaking  of  our  own  bodies  as  if  they  were  merely,  in  relation 
to  us,  external  things  like  the  things  which  surround  them. 
They  are  a  real  intermediation  between  '  us,'  (Mr  Ferrier's  '  I'), 
and  external  things:  they  belong  to  both  worlds  in  tMs  way: 
not  that  feeling,  or  thought  is  local,  for  it  is  not  our  hand  that 
feels,  but  'we';  not,  going  the  other  way,  that  locality  is  felt 
with  real  consciousness,  for  what  we  feel  with  feeling  thus 

1  Page  So. 


72 


FERRIEr's   institutes   of   JtETAPHTSIC.         [CHAP, 


(( 


it 


meant  {i.  e.  as  consciousness)  is  the  amount  of  will  or  force  that 
we  exert:  but  that,  in  that  apprehension  of  self  which  Mr  Fer- 
rier  justly  lays  down  as  at  the  root  of  knowledge,  the  self 
apprehended  is  not  merely  the  same  thing  as  the  self  appre- 
hending, in  which  case  the  process  would  be  unimportant:  the 
apprehending  the  apprehended  self  is  the  clothing  it  with 
various  predicates  (then,  indeed,  first  understood),  among  them 
locality  (corporealness  or  phenomenalness).  That  is  how  it  is 
that  our  bodies  are  ourselves  and  not  ourselves:  we  feel  by 
means  of  them  and  we  do  not  feel  by  means  of  them:  it  is 
not  they  that  feel,  but  we,  but  we  feel  that  we  should  not  feel 
without  them.     However  on  this  I  have  spoken. 

Some  of  Mr  Ferrier's  sentences  seem  better  adapted  than 
anything  else  that  I  know  of  to  cure  in  the  minds  of  students 
the  great  psychological  confusion:  such  as*,  '*The  expositors  of 
"  Pythagoras's  theory  of  numbers  have  usually  thought "  (I  do 
not  guarantee  the  fact)  "  that  things  are  already  numbered  by 
nature  either  as  one  or  many,  and  that  all  that  Pj^thagoras 
taught  was  that  we  re-number  them  when  they  come  before 
And  again,  "A  theory  which  professes  to  explain  how 
**  things  became  intelligible  must  surely  not  suppose  that  they 
are  intelligible  before  they  become  so".  And  again',  "As 
if  any  genuine  idealism  ever  denied  the  existence  of  external 
"  things — ever  denied  that  these  things  were  actually  and  hond 
fide  external  to  us.  Idealism  never  denied  this :  it  only  asks 
what  is  the  meaning  of  'external'  considered  out  of  all  re- 
lation to  '  internal',  and  it  shows  that,  out  of  this  relation,  the 
"  word  *  external'  has,  and  can  have,  no  meaning." 

What  Mr  Ferrier  attacks  he  calls  himself y  *  ordinary  or  na- 
tural thinking,  confirmed  and  made  worse  by  psychology'.  It 
seems  to  me  to  be  three  things,  on  the  first  of  which  I  only  par- 
tially agree  with  him,  on  the  other  two  quite. 

On  the  first  point  however  I  am  not  sure  whether  his  view 
is  single  and  one.  He  condemns  (philosophically)  ordinary  or 
natural  thinking,  with  its  'plausibilities",  and  considers  that 
philosophy  only  exists*  "to  correct  the  inadvertencies  of  man's 

"ordinary  thinking.     She  has  no  other  mission  to  fulfil no 

*' other  business  to  do".    To  settle,  as  a  fact,  what  'ordinary  or 

1  Page  89.  «  Page  105.  »  Page  25.  *  Page  29. 


"  us" 


« 


ft 


a 


it 


tt 


IV.]         ferrier's  institutes  of  metaphysic. 


73 


natuml'  thinking  is,  is  difficult  enough,  as  any  one  will  know 
who  has  read  Bishop  Berkeley.  And  then  are  'ordinary'  and 
'natural'  the  same?  It  seems  to  me  that  there  are  two  ways 
of  common  thinking,  which  may  well  be  expressed  by  these 
several  words,  and  that  each,  also,  is  only  partially  wrong. 

Suppose  we  call  'ordinary  thinking'  that  which  is  repre- 
sented by  common  language.  This,  in  the  main,  I  believe  in, 
and  think  it  is  right.  It  represents  what  may  be  described 
as  the  way  we  learn,  or  come  to  our  knowledge:  it  is  only 
partially  what  I  call  '  phenomenalist',  containing,  besides,  a 
large  amount  of  logical  notion,  here  in  its  place,  and  most 
helpful  to  learning  and  speculation:  the  phenomenalism  which 
it  has  represents  a  sort  of  normal  condition,  or  mean  level, 
of  phenomenalistic  thought,  at  which  perhaps  the  human  race 
will  always  stand — (I  mean  we  still  talk  of  the  sun  rising, 
&c.).  I  am  sorry  to  say,  I  have  always  had  the  feeling,  that ' 
the  language  of  ordinary  intelligent  communication  among  men 
is  better  than  the  language  of  philosophers.  And  the  thought 
therefore  cannot  be  very  bad. 

Suppose  we  call '  natural '  thought  the  thoroughly  phenome- 
nalistic view,  as  I  have  called  it,  which  is  what,  with  increase  of 
physical  knowledge,  there  is  in  many  ways  more  and  more  a 
tendency  to  ;  this,  as  I  have  said,  is  in  my  view  perfectly  right 
in  its  place  and  for  its  own  purposes,  only  not  beyond. 

With  Mr  Ferrier's  account  of  what  philosophy  exists  for, 
just  now  quoted,  I  do  not  agree  at  all.  So  far  as  philosophy 
does  exist  for  any  correction  of  this  kind  its  use  as  to  '  ordinary' 
thinking  seems  to  be  to  prevent  any  tendency  to  what  I  should 
call  'uotionalism',  that  is,  to  prevent  people's  thinking  that  the 
'  qualities',  '  attributes '  &c.  which  they  talk  about,  and  in  my 
view  are  quite  right  in  talking  about,  are  the  real  things  of 
the  universe.  Similarly,  its  use  as  to  'natural'  thinking  would 
be  to  prevent  phenomenalism  trespassing,  as  I  should  call  it,  on 
morals  and  religion,  and  becoming  positivism. 

So  much  for  the  first  thing  which  it  seems  to  me  Mr  Ferrier 
attacks— the  second  is  'the  philosophy  of  the  human  mind', 
as  he  with  some  kind  of  contempt  calls  it ;  psychology,  or,  as  I 
have  called  it,  noo-psychology  (as  distinguished  from  physio- 
psychology),  the  Lockian  psychology  or  that  of  the  last  centuiy. 


"xcr  rr~T-^^^'^'^"^*^''' 


74 


feriiier's  institutes  of  metaphysic.      [chap. 


/ 


I  may  not  despise  this,  as  he  seems  to  do,  or  think  its  re- 
sults, as  he  does,  *  frightful' *;  but  I  disagree  with  it  as  much 

as  he. 

Under  the  name  of  'psychology'  Mr  Ferrier  includes  the 
third  thing,  not  quite,  it  seems  to  me,  the  same  as  the  last, 
though  it  is  what  I  equally  agree  with  him  in  condemning ;'  and 
in  fact  I  have,  in  much  that  I  have  written,  been  attacking  it. 
It  is  the  doctrine  of  the  'unknowable  substratum',  or  'thing  in 
itself.  I  refer  to  Mr  Ferrier  at  page  128  for  an  account,  too  long 
to  quote,  which  I  go  with  thoroughly,  saving  the  philosophical 
language.  The  misfortune  is,  that  this  philosophical  difficulty 
is  worse  than  Proteus-like  :  it  is  not  only  infinitely  self-transfor- 
mative and  scarcely  any  way  seizable,  but  it  has  the  property  of 
making  those  who  most  attempt  to  grasp  it  appear  to  hold 
themselves  all  that  is  wrong  in  it,  while  itself  puts  on  an  ap- 
pearance all  innocent  and  right.  People  will  say  that  Mr 
Ferrier s  'matter  per  se'  is  as  bad  as  'the  unknowable  sub- 
stratum'. I  believe,  myself,  that  Mr  Ferrier  is  right,  and  that 
there  is  the  error  which  he  notices  in  those  whom  he  criticizes  : 
but  what  we  want  is  to  be  able  to  do  without  talking  of  this 
horrible  chimera  which  philosopher  after  philosopher  will  talk 
about  so  much  in  order  to  persuade  people  what,  while  he  does 
so,  he  cannot  get  them  to  believe,  that  neither  he  nor  anybody 
can  know  anything  about  it.  Consequently,  I  do  not  like  the 
language  of  'matter  per  se'. 

Nor  am  I  certain  that  I  see  the  bearing,  on  this  question,  of 
his  great  law,  that  we  apprehend  ourselves  in  conjunction  with 
the  object.  Unfortunately,  the  method  of  his  philosophy,  its 
being  reasoned,  as  he  calls  it,  which  was  to  carry  in^efragable 
conviction  and  end  controversy,  is  what  I  can  but  little  enter 
into  or  follow.  I  can,  indeed,  translate  this  '  law '  into  my  own 
language,  much  as  I  have  done:  then  Mr  Ferrier  seems  to  say 
much  the  same  as  I,  or  I  as  he.  But  if  I  cannot  appreciate 
his  demonstration,  I  can  the  point  and  clearness  of  many  of 

his  sentences. 

I  may  say  the  same,  in  reference  to  this  subject,  of  his 
Agnoiology  or  theory  of  ignorance.  His  manner  of  thought 
here,   as  I   understand  it,   is   one  which  might  strike  many 

^  P^ge  505. 


iv.]  ferrier's  institutes  of  metaphysic.  75 

minds  forcibly.  We  do  not  know  this  '  thing  in  itself ',  to  be 
sure,  but  then,  on  the  other  hand,  we  are  not  ignorant  of  it : 
our  state  in  regard  of  it  is  not  that  of  ignorance,  which  is 
what  all  you  who  talk  about  it  imply,  and  even  say:  it  is 
no  more  ignorance  than  it  is  knowledge :  if  you  can  find  a 
third  alternative,  that  is  our  state  in  regard  to  it :  if  not,  you 
have  no  more  right  to  say,  expressly  or  impliedly,  that  we  are 
ignorant  of  it,  than  1  have  to  say  we  know  it.  This,  as  I 
understand,  is  in  other  language  what  I  meant  by  saying,  that 
the  notion  of  knowledge  is  not  applicable  to  it :  that  there  is 
nothing  to  know :  that  talking  of  knowing  it  is  like  talking  of 
eating  light,  or  smelling  sound  :  disparate,  incongruous.  ^ 

I  will  comment  slightly  on  Mr  Ferrier  s  language  as  to 
the  necessary  and  the  contingent,  that  which  is,  and  that  which , 
is  not,  conceivable  otherwise ;  with  a  view  of  showmg  how  his 
language  differs  from  that  which  I  have  used. 

Nature,  he  says  in  one  place  (if  I  re.member  rightly),  could 
have  made  the  sun  to  turn  round  the  earth,  instead  of  the 
opposite,  but  could  not  have  made  two  straight  lines  to  enclose 

a  space. 

Now  here  I  do  not  go  with  him,  and  I  allude  to  what 
he  thinks  because  it  will  perhaps  illustrate  my  view,  and  be- 
cause my  difference  with  him  spreads  further. 

The  difference  between  the  necessary  and  the  contingent 
(using  this  latter  term  of  what  we  know  to  be  fact— to  avoid 
ambiguity,  it  might  be  better  to  call  it  '  contingential ')  seems  to 
me  only  a  difference  of  our  manner  of  arriving  at  knowledge  ; 
that  knowledge  which  we  arrive  at  chiefly  by  the  way  of  thought 
and  reason  has   to   us   more  of  the  character  which  we  call 
necessity :  that  which  is  more  of  experience,  acquaintance,  testi- 
mony, is  contingential :  but  we  cannot  draw  a  line :  we  cannot 
say,  one  portion  of  knowledge  is  and  must  be  known  to  us  in  the 
one  way,  another  part  in  the  other :  so  far  as  the  contingential 
is  true  knowledge,  is  certain,  not  approximate  only  or  hypotheti- 
cal, it  might  have  been  arrived  at  by  the  road  of  thought,  and 
then  it  would  have  been  to  be  called  necessary :  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  there  is  no  thought  which  is  not  experience :  as  I 
have  in  another  place  expressed   it,  we  find  out  everything : 
after  that  which  we  start  with,  our  own  existence. 


76 


FBRBIEb's    INSTITrXES    OP    METAPHTSIC.         [cHAP. 


IV.]  FERBIEll's   INSTITUTES   OF    METAPHTSIC. 


77 


M 


[ 


I  think  Mr  Ferrier  s  account  of  what  nature  could  have  done 
in  the  above  case  is  not  correct — it  depends  on  what  we  mean 
by  the  *  sun '  and  the  '  earth  \ 

If  in  our  notion  of  *the  sun'  and  'the  earth'  we  compre- 
hend only  a  small  number  of  their  actual  properties,  it  is  ex- 
ceedingly easy  to  suppose  the  order  of  things  to  have  been 
'the  sun  round  the  earth'.  Men  did  long  so  suppose.  The 
more  ignorant  we  are  of  their  properties,  the  more  easy  it  is 
to  suppose  it.  That  is,  it  is  the  omission  of  properties  from 
the  notion  which  makes  the  easiness. 

The  straight  line  has  got  but  one  property  (say),  namely,  that 
it  is  the  shortest  distance  between  two  points :  there  is  therefore 
but  one  thing  to  omit  (to  make  a  parallel  case),  and  the  suppo- 
sition of  omission  is  difficult,  because  there  remains  nothing 
for  the  notion.  But  omission  thus  being  scarcely  possible,  let 
us  suppose,  what  is  very  likely,  obscure  view  or  inattention: 
it  is  then  perfectly  possible  to  conceive  that  two  straight  lines 
might  inclose  a  space:  and  I  dare  say  at  this  moment  many 
people  would  so  conceive  about  them. 

I  am  unable  therefore  to  see  any  difference  in  nature's 
power  in  the  two  cases:  if  she  had  made  two  straight  lines  to 
inclose  a  space,  they  would  not  be  what  we  now  understand  by 
straight  lines:  if  she  had  made  the  sun  to  turn  round  the  earth, 
these  would  not  be  what  we  now  understand  by  the  sun  and 
the  earth:  the  solar  system  would  have  been  different,  and 
very  likely  we  should  not  be  talking  of  the  sun  and  the  earth 
at  all.  The  difference  in  the  cases  is  this:  common  language  is 
constructed  on  what  I  have  called  a  sort  of  normal  stage  of  phe- 
nomenalism :  hence  for  things  like  the  sun  there  is  a  common, 
non-scientific,  language,  but  it  does  not  express  the  full  intelli- 
gent notion ;  for  geometrical  notions  there  is,  I  suppose,  only 
the  scientific  language,  expressing  the  full  notion.  The  sun 
and  the  earth  which  can  change  their  relative  circumstances 
are  those  of  the  vulgar,  but  then  what  the  straight  lines  of  the 
vulgar  may  do,  or  what  spaces  they  may  inclose,  I  can  hardly 
tell — we  must  compare  the  sun  and  earth  as  they  are,  i.e.  as  we 
best  can  know  them,  with  straight  lines  as  they  are. 

The  notion  of  necessity  and  contingency  is  important  with 
Mr  Ferrier  in  reference   to  knowledge  altogether.     I  do  not 


propose  to  examine  what  he  says,  which  would  take  too  long, 
only  to  say  one  or  two  words. 

The  contingent  laws  of  cognition,  he  says,  are  the  senses 
and  the  circumstances  of  them:  the  necessary  law  of  it  is  the 
apprehension  of  self  in  conjunction  with  the  object  of  know- 
ledge. 

So  far  as  I  understand  this,  it  seems  the  same  view  which  I 
hold  if  we  take  care  about  these  notions  of  'necessity'  and 
*  contingence ',  which  nevertheless  with  Mr  Ferrier  play  an 
important  part :  there  is  a  fact,  a  difference  to  be  expressed, 
but  it  is  not  an  absolute  difference,  such  as  Mr  Ferrier  pro- 
bably means  to  express  by  these  terms. 

His  fundamental  view,  that  all  knowledge  is  of  oneself  in 
conjunction  with  the  object,  is,  as  I  understand  it,  what  I 
should  translate  in  different  ways  into  my  language :  one  way 
would  be  this.  Our  second  or  known  self  is  to  our  first  or  think- 
ing self,  the  great  sense  or  faculty  of  knowledge,  by  which  the 
object  is  known.  The  notion  then  of  the  self  (the  known  self) 
being  the  necessary,  the  senses  the  contingent,  accompaniments 
of  knowledge,  seems  to  me  to  be  simply  an  expression  of  the 
subordination  of  the  latter  to  the  former. 

All  that  I  say  about  'necessary'  and  'contingent'  here  isV 
that  they  do  not  express  an  absolute  difference:  that  they 
shade  off  the  one  into  the  other ;  they  mean  what  I  have  in 
another  place  called  the  comparatively  important,  and  unim- 
portant, parts  of  knowledge :  the  important,  according  to  their 
importance,  belonging  more  universally  to  all  intelligence: 
the  less  important  allowing  the  conception  of  a  science  of  com- 
parative epistemology,  or  of  the  different  knowledge  of  different 
beings  according  to  their  different  cognitive  organisations.  ^ 

One  of  the  boldest  efforts  of  abstract  imagination  (a  sort  of 
thing  I  like  very  much)  is  made  by  Mr  Ferrier  in  pp.  381,  382, 
and  it  seems  to  me  rather  to  show  what  I  am  saying.  It  is  too 
long  to  quote,  and  I  can  hardly  otherwise  give  an  idea  of  it, 

I  will  however  try. 

One  and  all  of  our  present  senses,  he  says,  might  be  abolished, 
and  provided  they  were  replaced  by  a  set  of  different  senses,  a 
man's  knowledge  of  a  tree,  for  instance,  might  be  as  perfect  as  or 
more  perfect  than  it  now  is.. .  .But  let  us  suppose  tlie  self  which  a 


(i 


'8 


fereier's  institutes  of  metaphtsic.     [chap. 


IV.  1         ferrier's  institutes  of  metaphtsic. 


79 


!'^i 


man,  knowing  the  tree,  is  cognisant  of  with  the  tree,  to  be  ex- 
changed for  something  else,  and  that  some  mode  of  apprehension 
different  from  self-consciousness  comes  into  play — would  the 
man,  in  that  case,  continue  to  have  any  cognisance  of  the  tree  ? 
Certainly  not.  "  Withhold  any  of  a  man's  senses  from  his  cog- 
**  nisance  while  he  is  conversant  with  external  things,  and  he 
"  will  still  be  able  to  apprehend  them,  provided  you  give  him 
"  other  modes  of  apprehension."  But  withhold  a  man's  self 
from  his  cognisance,  and  he  shall  not  be  able  to  apprehend  the 
things  intelligently — give  him  what  substitute  and  what  endow- 
ments you  please  in  place  of  the  self  which  has  been  withdrawn 
from  his  cognition. 

I  have  quoted  textually  the  last  sentence  but  one,  on 
account  of  an  apparent  hesitation  or  ambiguity,  which  I  wish 
observed,  as  to  *  any '  and  '  other '.  And  I  have  cited  the  whole 
passage,  because  the  conclusion  that  /  draw  from  it  is  this :  that 

*  senses'  (I  do  not  say  what  senses)  or  other  modes  of  apprehen- 
sion (distinct  from  self-consciousness)  are  necessary :  any  sense 
may  be  removed,  but  even  then  some  particular  mode  of  appre- 
hension must  be  substituted  for  it :  and,  on  the  other  side,  that 

*  self-consciousness'  is  so  far  contingent,  that  it  is  possible  to 
make  the  supposition  of  some  mode  of  apprehension  being  sub- 
stituted for  that  (as  is  done  in  the  second  sentence— it  is  one 
out  of  various  conceivable  modes  of  apprehension),  which  indeed 
would  not  give  us  '  cognisance' :  but  this  would  go  to  show  that 
it  is  possible  to  have  a  wider  notion  of  '  apprehension'  of  things 
than  Mr  Ferrier's  '  cognisance'. 

Another  way  in  which  I  should  translate  Mr  Ferrier's  view 
into  one  similar  to  my  own  is  this:  by  'phenomena',  using  the 
word  for  a  moment  etymologically,  I  do  not  mean  appearances 
of  something  necessarily  different  from  the  appearances,  but 
appearances  to  us,  which  may  be  more  than  appearances,  or 
may  be  not — that  is  of  further  consideration.  I  mention  in 
passing  that  this  hangs  on  to  the  view  on  which  natural  facts 
were  first  called  phcenomena,  in  this  way :  that  they  were  called 
so  in  distinction  from  tcl  ovra,  which  latter  were  variously  un- 
derstood :  I  recognise  such,  but  understand  them  to  be  thought, 
which  in  my  view  takes  the  lead  of  things  :  by  the  real  being 
of  things  I  understand  the  right  conception  of  them  or  about 


them,  by  the  phenomenal  being  of  them  (so  far  as  I  give  sig- 
nification to  the  term  'phenomenal',  besides  giving  it  opplica- 
tion,  which  is  my  main  business  with  it,  to  physical  fact  or  the 
facts  of  .the  spatial  universe)  I  mean  the  conception  of  them 
which  accompanies  our  corporeal  communication  with  them: 
this  I  look  upon  as  a  right  conception  of  them,  but  different 
from  the  other  as  the  right  and  complete  one. 

When  Mr  Ferrier  says  then,  that  what  we  know  is  ourselves 
knowing,  one  way  in  which  I  should  translate  this  is,  that  the 
complete  or  higher  knowledge  is  the  observation  and  criticism 
of  the  way  in  which  things  appear  (are  phenomena)  to  us :  we 
are  here,  as  he  wishes,  in  two  positions ;  in  the  lower,  things 
appear  to  us ;  in  the  higher,  we  watch  the  process,  and  judge 
from  the  appearing,  so  far  as  we  may,  what  they  are. 

I  think  in  translating  Mr  Ferrier  thus  I  am  going  beyond 
him  :  but  I  think  that  I  am  right  in  doing  so. 

I  will  finish  with  quoting  from  Mr  Ferrier  a  few  words 
upon  the  highest  matters  of  philosophy,  in  which  I  cordially 
agree  with  him,  and  which  are  not  gratuitous,  but  are  an  inti- 
mate part  of  his  view  as  I  understand  it,  and  certainly  of  mine 
(the  expression  is  his) : 

"Neither  the  existence  nor  the  non-existence  of  things  is 
"conceivable  out  of  relation  to  our  intelligence,  and  therefore 
"  the  highest  and  most  binding  law  of  all  reason  is,  that  under  no 
"  circumstances  can  a  supreme  mind  be  conceived  as  abstracted 
"from  the  universe  V  "  To  save  the  universe  from  presenting  a 
"  contradiction  to  all  reason,  intelligence  must  be  postulated  along 
"with  it  I"  "In  the  judgment  of  reason  there  never  can  have 
"been  a  time  when  the  universe  was  without  GodV  "Every 
mind  thinks,  and  must  think  of  God  (however  little  it  may  be 
conscious  of  the  operation  which  it  is  performing),  whenever  it 
"  thinks  of  anything  as  lying  beyond  all  human  observation,  or 
"as  subsisting  in  the  absence  or  annihilation  of  all  finite  intel- 

"  ligences*." 

We  know  more  about  God  than  this,  but  what  we  know 
more  about  him  is  what  it  is  to  us  because  we  know  this  first 
about  him,  and  if  it  is  detached  from  this  will  cease  to  fill  the 
mind  and  stir  the  whole  of  men's  nature  as  religion  has  done. 

1  Page  497.  ^  Page  510.  ^  p^gg  511.  *  Page  512. 


<€ 


it 


f?' 


p-\ 


>Ii    t 


I 


11!  1 


li, 


80 


ferrier's  institutes  of  metaphysic.      [chap. 


IV.] 


ferrier's  institutes  of  metaphysic. 


81 


I  have  spoken  about  necessity  and  contingency  a  little  in 
another  pla^e,  as  well  as  just  now  in  reference  to  Mr  Ferner 
but  I  will  just  put  what  I  have  said  in  still  another  form,  as  it 

is  important.  *  .        /•     xi,* 

Contingentialness  is  in  substance  the  notion  of  a  thing  ex- 
isting as  fa^t.  in  other  words,  of  this  existing,  not  that:  neces- 
sariness  is  the  notion  of  a  thing  existing  with  reason  for  its 
existence.     If  each  notion  wa.  carried  out  to  the  full,  we  should 
xnean  by  the  former  that  this  is  in  fact  what  exists,  but  that  i 
is  quite  possible,  and  for  all  that  we  know,  equally  hkely,  that 
th^t  might  have  existed  instead  (or  if  we  prefer  the  supposition, 
nothing  instead,  only  that  this  might  not  have  existed) :   we 
should  mean  by  the  latter  that  this  must  exist,  and  that  we 
know  it  must,  and  that  nothing  else  could  have   existed  m- 
stead  of  it;  but  that  we  do  not  know  it  does,  and  cannot  (in 
effect)  imagine  how  it  actually  does.     If  we  entirely  exclude 
the  notion  of  contingentialness  we  have  no  notion  of  particu- 
larity  or  actuality  of  existence,  if  we  entirely  exclude  that  of 
necessariness  we  have  no  notion  of  method  or  wholeness  of  ex- 
istence     And  in  reality  the  word  '  existence    means  two  things 
with  us,  th^se  two,  and  they  are  quite  different.    And  it  means 
in  each  ca^e  not  one  of  the  two,  but  both.     If  we  could  abso- 
lutely and  entirely  exclude  all  possibility  of  even  making  the 
supposition  that  God  did  not  exist,  there  would  then  be  no 
meaning  in  saying  he  existed:  there  would  be  no  ground  or 
counternotion,  as  I  call  it,  to  the  notion;  it  would  have  no  sig- 
nificance.    Similarly,  if  we  could  be  thorough  positimsts  (in  the 
proper  etymological  signification  of  that  word)  or,  I  may  say, 
matter-of.factists,  i.e.  if  we  could  entirely  destroy  in  ourselves 
all  notion  of  reason  for  things,  and  care  only  for  the  historical 
knowledge  o^  fact  about  them- then,  if  I  might  so  speak,  this 
knowledge  would  not  be  knowledge:   the  mind  would  be  a 
record  of  successive  experiences,   but  we   should   only  really 
have  had  intercourse  with  fact  much  as  a  log  of  wood  tossed 
about  by  the  sea  in  various  cHmates  would  bear  traces  of  them: 
knowledge  is  thought,  judgment. 


The  canvass  or  ground  of  all  our  knowledge  is  the  conjunct^ 
supposition,  '  Everything  might  have  been  otherwise  than  it  is, 
but  there  is  reason  why  everything  is  as  it  is.'  The  distinct 
conception  of  a  thing  as  fact  involves  some  degree  of  imagina- 
tion that  it  might  have  been  otherwise :  and  on  the  other  hand 
there  would  be  no  interest  in  knowing  things  as  matter  of  fact 
at  all  unless  we  believed  some  connexion  among  the  things :  a 
'necessitudo',  a  mutual  relation. 

Of  course,  beginning  from  the  first  infinite  possibility,  rea- 
son of  being  is  in  different  degrees.  Beginning  with  the  exist- 
ence of  God,  I  think  Descartes,  and  Mr  Ferrier  in  the  passages 
which  I  have  just  quoted  from  him,  go  too  far  in  this  way, 
that  they  make  the  necessity  of  such  a  nature  as  hardly  to 
allow  a  knowledge  of  fact:  consequently  to  what  they  describe 
a  great  many  people  would  say,  we  do  not  caU  this  the 
knowledge  of  the  existence  of  God  at  aU:  it  is  not  what  we 
mean  by  it.  Therefore  when  people  speak  of  the  knowledge 
of  the  existence  of  God  a  priori  and  a  posteriori,  so  far  as  I 
understand  the  distinction,  I  think  it  is  both  ways. 

Taking  then  the  existence  of  God  as  the  first  necessity,  the 
ultimate  point  at  which  nevertheless  we  cannot  quite  escape 
contingence,  we  come  afterwards  to  lower  necessities,  say  ma- 
thematical. I  see,  as  I  have  said,  no  principle  in  the  discussion 
whether  two  straight  lines  not  inclosing  a  space  is  a  truth  of 
necessity  or  experience,  the  degree  to  which  it  may  be  called 
the  latter  depending  in  my  view  simply  upon  the  degree  in 
which  people  could  imagine  the  contrary.  People  might  (there 
is  no  saying)  try  on  a  piece  of  paper  whether  two  straight  lines 
could  enclose  a  space,  but  they  would  never  try  on  a  table 
whether  two  inkstands  were  the  same  as  three. 

The  various  phenomena  of  the  universe  have  each,  and  all 
as  connected  with  each  other,  their  reason,  and  this  makes  a 
necessity,  as  against  what  Mr  Ferrier  says  about  the  sun  and 
the  earth,  as  complete  as  the  necessity  which  we  have  just  been 
speaking  of.  But  of  aU  this  reason,  even  the  lower  and  nearer 
part,  the  mutual  connexion  among  phenomena,  we  can  know 
but  little  of:  of  the  higher  and  more  distant  part,  or  the  sup- 
position of  purpose  for  which  they  may  exist,  stHl  less.  The 
means  of  our  knowledge  about  them,  therefore  is  by  the  manner 

6 


! 


82  FERRIEE's  institutes   of   METAPHTSIC.      [chap,  IV. 

of  mere  experience:  contingential:  the  more  particular  they 
are  the  more  contingentiaL  AU  along  we  may  well  suppose 
gradation  of  reason  or  necessity  for  and  in  them:  some  thmgs 
more  important  in  the  universe  than  others,  others  less  mijwrt- 
ant:  some  for  the  sake  of  others:  different  ways  beforehand  of 
doing  the  same  thing,  one  chosen:  on  all  this  however  I  could 
not  "speak  without  introducing  the  notions  of  will,  purpose, 
ideal,  which  I  do  not  wish  to  do  here. 


CHAPTER   V. 

SIE  WILLIAM  HAMILTON'S  LECTURES  ON 

METAPHYSICS. 


M 


The  next  book  which  I  come  to  is  Sir  William  Hamilton's 
Lectures  on  Metaphysics.  I  wish  to  test  my  views  by  his,  and 
his  by  mine:  or,  in  other  words,  to  examine  how  far,  in  his 
account  of  the  manner  in  which  we  gain  our  knowledge,  he 
keeps  what  I  have  called  philosophy  and  phenomenalism  distinct, 
and  whether  he  falls  into  the  confusion  which  arises  from  im- 
properly mixing  them. 

To  recall  to  the  reader  for  a  moment,  as  cannot  be  done  too 
often,  the  difference  between  them:  the  point  of  consequence 
is,  what  we  start  with.  The  physical  philosopher  starts,  and 
must  start,  with  the  view  of  things  which  regulates  our  material 
life,  according  to  which  7,  for  each  one  of  us,  means  one  of  a 
particular  class  of  organized  beings  out  of  an  universe  of  beings 
contained  in  space;  the  whole  universe,  and  this  /,  as  a  part  of 
it,  being  composed  of  various  elements  and  forces  variously 
communicating  together.  Upon  all  these  we  look,  as  we  for  this 
view  suppose,  with  a  disengaged  intelligence,  dissecting  the  /, 
so  far  as  we  can,  like  any  other  organism,  and  watching  the 
play  of  elements  and  forces  between  it  and  that  which  is  not  it. 
This  view  is  what  I  have  called  an  abstraction;  that  is,  so  far 
as  we  look  at  the  entire  of  things  it  will  not  stand  by  itself, 
for  this  reason,  that  we  could  not  have  attained  to  it  without 
certain  mental  principles  being  in  action  which  enable  us 
to  view  things  as  objects  or  unities:  when  however  we  have 
attained  to  it,  as  we  all  do,  we  may  leave  out  of  axjcount  the 
manner  in  which  we  did  so,  and  suppose  for  the  time  that  the 
elements,  forces,  &c.,  contain  somehow  in  themselves  the  entire 
reason  why  they  are  viewed  by  us  in  the  manner  in  which  they 

6—2 


84 


SIR   WILLIAM   HAMILTON  S 


[chap. 


H 


!l« 


J, 


are  viewed:  such  a  view,  as  compared  with  a  supposed  view  of 
the  entire  of  things,  makes  what  I  have  called  an  abstraction. 
This  phenomenalist  view  is  what,  both  in  the  individual  and 
collective  advance  of  knowledge,  we  in  one  respect  grow  more 
and  more  to,  that  it  is  what  experience  continually  clears  and 
confirms:  in  another  respect,  it  is  simply  the  view  of  such  intel- 
ligence as  is  possessed  by  all  animals,  and  we  have  something  - 
about  us  which  protests  against  its  entire  engrossment  of  us. 

The  original  fact  to  us,  the  one  thing  of  which  we  are,  be- 
fore all  others,  certain,  is  not  the  existence  of  an  universe  of 
which  we,  as  organized  beings,  form  a  part,  but  the  feeling, 
thinking,  knowing,  that  this  is  so,  and  the  knowing  that  we  do 
know  it,  or,  in  other  words,  that  we  who  know  it,  are  anterior, 
in  our  own  view  of  ourselves,  to  it.     If  then  we  begin  with 
this  supposition,  we  know  nothing  about  a  phenomenal   uni- 
verse, a  universe  of  existing  things  besides  ourselves,  except 
so  far  as  we  realize  the  manner  in  which  one  part  of  it  after 
another  becomes  known  to  us  or  the  subject  of  our  thoughts 
{object  of  our  knowledge),  and  we  must  not,  previously  to  this 
realization,  suppose  them  existing.     This  successive  realization 
is  the  logical  genesis  or  growth  of  our  knowledge.    It  is  not  ex- 
istence of  any  kind,  that  in  the  first  instance  is  supposed  to  be 
the  object  of  our  knowledge,  but  what  is  supposed  is  feehng, 
thought,  knowledge,  and  /  as  the  subject  of  them,  and  only 
existence  in  so  far  as  this  feeling  may,  in  whatever  way,  in- 
evitably suggest  it.     This,  evidently,  is  a  deeper  view  than  phe- 
nomenalism, or,  in  other  words,  it  mounts  to  an  earlier  original 
fact.     But,  in  the  first  instance,  all  that  we  may  consider  it 
concerned  about  is  feelings,  thoughts,  knowledge,  of  a  supposed 
I.     While  so  restrained,  however  widely  it  may  trace  the  man- 
ner in  which  we  think  and  the  results  at  which  our  thought 
arrives,  it  is  an  abstraction,  like  phenomenalism,  in  comparison 
with  what  we  may  imagine  an  entire  view  of  things.     This  is 
what  I  have  called  the  logical  (epistemological)  or  lower  philo- 
sophical view. 
'        My  notion  of  the  higher  philosophy  anwers  to  what  might 
be  called,  and  by  many  philosophers  has  been  and  is  called 
Ontology',  or  the  theory  of  'being',  as  against  the  theory  of 
knowing,  or  the  phsenomenology  of  knowledge,  or  various  other 


,^t^lti£Aiit. 


W 


v.] 


LECTURES    ON    METAPHYSICS. 


85 


language:  but  I  do  not  think  the  term  a  good  one,  for  this 
reason.  I  do  not  at  all  say  but  that  what  I  have  called  pheno- 
menalism represents  to  us,  or  is  to  us,  a  true  and  real  existence. 
I  only  say,  that  we  must  draw  no  conclusions  from  it  beyond 
its  sphere,  and  that  if  we  mount  to  the  primary  fact  upon 
which  every  thing  to  us,  even  it,  rests,  our  consciousness,  it 
seems  to  me  that  we  must  consider  that  the  sphere  of  pheno- 
menalism does  not  represent  to  us  the  whole  of  reasonable 
thought.     Further  than  this  I  do  not  go  now. 

The  purpose  with  which  I  am  at  present  examining  Sir 
William  Hamilton  and  other  books  is  to  see  how  far  the  pheno- 
menalist view  and  that  of  the  pure  philosophy  of  knowledge 
are  confused :  i.  e.  how  far  there  is  a  vacillation,  in  the  primary 
assumption,  between  that  of  a  thinking  mind  and  that  of  a 
phenomenal  universe. 

Sir  William  Hamilton's  Lectures  on  Metaphysics  are  I  sup- 
pose, as  to  method,  a  Philosophy  of  the  Human  Mind,  following 
more  or  less  the  order  of  considering  the  subject  which  was 
begun  long  ago,  and  has  been  followed,  in  the  main,  by  the 
successive  Scotch  philosophers.  He  differs  from  them,  or  most 
of  them,  first,  in  the  greater  use  of  logical  conceptions  and 
terms,  and  next,  in  what  I  may  call  the  less  prominence,  at 
least,  of  phenomenalism.  I  mean  that  his  purpose  is  described 
very  definitely  as  being  '  the  analysis  of  consciousness'.  So  far 
good.  *The  phaenomena  of  mind'  are  however  talked  of  by 
the  side  of  'the  phaenomena  of  matter'.  This  is  less  promising. 
But  effort  is  then  made  to  get  the  two  into  one  consideration 
by  the  establishing  that  we  have  a  consciousness  (I  suppose)  of 
matter  similar  to  the  consciousness  which  we  have  of  mind  or 
self  This  so  far  as  it  is  not  language  only,  but  represents 
fact,  is  what  stands  in  direct  opposition  to  my  view,  and  what, 
in  consequence  of  this,  I  shall  rather  fully  examine.  But  still 
my  view  outflanks  this,  so  to  speak,  and  the  establishment  of 
this  is  not  only  impossible,  but  would  not,  if  successful,  serve 
the  purpose  needed.  Mind  is  above  matter,  because  even  if 
there  could  be  established  a  parallel  consciousness  of  phaeno- 
mena of  mind  and  of  those  of  matter,  it  is  mind  which  has  that 
consciousness.  There  would  still  be  a  phaenomenon  of  mind  at 
the  head  of  all,  namely,  this  double  consciousness  itself. 


f. 


I 


l> 


86 


SIR  WILLIAM   HAMILTON  9 


[chap. 


v.] 


LECTURES  ON   METAPHYSICS. 


87 


0 


'I  I 


if' 


What  Sir  William  Hamilton  then  has  done,  is  to  point  out, 
more  distinctly  than  seem»  to  have  been  done  by  others,  the 
doubleness  of  consciousness,  or  in  other  words,  he  has,  it  may 
be,  introduced  (I  am  not  certain  whether  that  is  so)  the  prac- 
tice of  extending  the  application  of  the  term  'consciousness' 
from  'self-consciousness'  to  (what  I  may  call)  the  whole  amount 
of  knowledge  which  we  have,  in  the  first  instance  and  imme- 
diately, in  conjunction  with  this  self-consciousness.  This  is  very 
well:  but  he  seems  to  me  to  consider  that  the  amount  of  this 
knowledge  is  greater  than  it  is,  and  to  be  confused  in  his 
notion  of  it,  and  consequently  he  has  applied,  as  I  think,  the 
term   consciousness   quite  beyond    the  reasonable  application 

of  it. 

We  are  aware  of  the  not-self  or  non-ego  quite  as  immedi- 
ately and  primarily  as  we  are  of  the  self,  or  ego,  the  distinction 
of  the  one  from  the  other  being  necessary  for  the  knowledge 
of  either.  The  term  '  consciousness'  is  therefore  very  fitly  ap- 
plied, if  we  like  so  to  apply  it,  to  our  knowledge  of  the  non- 
ego  as  well  as  to  our  knowledge  of  the  ego.  But  the  non-ego 
as  known  merely  by  this  consciousness  is  entirely  formless:  it 
is  known  to  us  only  as  the  not-self,  and  in  no  other  character. 
Difficulty  begins  to  arise  when  we  try  to  understand  how  it  is 
that  it  puts  on  to  us  the  form  of  what  we  call  the  external 
world.  There  requires  to  be,  of  course,  careful  thought  here. 
We  are  conscious  of  the  non-ego  exactly  correspondingly  to  our 
consciousness  of  the  ego,  but  no  further.  We  are  conscious  of 
ourselves  as  feeling  (say),  or  thinking,  and  correspondingly  with 
this  we  are  conscious  (if  we  like  so  to  speak)  of  something  be- 
yond or  distinct  from  ourselves  (ourselves  being  determined  by 
feeling  or  thinking),  which,  according  to  the  language  we  use, 
we  describe  as  being  what  we  feel  or  think,  or  what  causes  us 
to  feel  or  think,  or  in  various  other  manners.  Over  against 
then,  and  correspondent  to,  the  feeling  of  ourselves  stands  a 
knowledge  of  something  as  not-ourselves.  But  the  various 
qualities  or  characters  of  feeling  are  not  space,  direction,  mag- 
nitude, solidity,  but  are  pleasure,  pain,  duration,  repetition,  &c. : 
on  the  other  hand,  our  detailed  knowledge  has  for  its  qualities 
or  characters  the  former  sort  of  things;  how  is  it  that  the 
original  double  consciousness   of  an   ego  and  non-ego,  while, 


in  the  line  of  the  ego,  it  puts  on  to  us  those  various  characters 
of  pleasure,  pain,  &c.,  which  we  can  understand  as  attaching 
to  feeUng,  changes  itself,  in  the  line  of  the  non-ego,  into  some- 
thing with  which  we  cannot  at  all  suit  the  notion  of  conscious- 
ness, the  qualities  or  characters  of  it  (space,  magnitude,  &c.) 
being  what  cannot  be  characters  of  feeling  ? 

In  reality  of  course,  being  an  expression  of  what,  in  the 
last  resort,  is  to  us  feeling,  they  are  in  a  manner  characters  of 
feeling,  and  we  might,  in  language  cumbrous  and  bizarre,  de- 
scribe our  multiplied  experience  by  talking  of  ourselves  as  feel- 
ing seeingly,  feeling  hearingly,  and  by  using  no  other  forms  of 
languasre  than  verbs  and  adverbs.  What  is  the  reason  why  we 
do  not  do  this  ?  In  our  capacity  for  pleasure  and  pain  there  is 
the  seed  of  endless  variety  in  our  consciousness  in  the  line  of 
the  ego :  what  is  the  seed  of  the  expansion  of  our  conscious- 
ness of  the  non-ego  beyond  mere  consciousness,  which  is  what 
would  be  represented  by  the  language  which  I  have  given 
above,  into  phenomenal  knowledge,  which  is  what  our  actual 
language  represents  ? 

It  is  strange,  but  it  seems  to  me  as  if  Sir  William  Hamil- 
ton throughout  considered  that  the  saying  we  were  conscious 
of  a  non-ego  were  the  same  as  saying  we  were  conscious  of 
matter  \     Our  body  is  of  course  the  medium  between  our  in- 

1  I  have  returned  to  this  in  another  place,  and  must  apologize  for  much  repe- 
tition and  awkwardness  in  the  treatment  of  it,  only  begging  that  it  may  be  re- 
membered that  I  never  professed  to  be  free  from  such.  What  I  have  here  expressed 
wonder  at  is  I  suppose  undoubtedly  what  Sir  William  Hamilton  did  consider,  and 
his  considering  it  is  looked  upon  by  those  who  sympathize  philosophically  with  him 
as  an  important  discovery  on  his  part.  So  far  as  he  did  mean  this,  I  have  in  another 
place  (page  ii6&c.)  commented  on  the  misapplication  of  the  term  'conscious- 
ness'. Independent  of  the  term,  all  that  T  can  see  in  Sir  William  Hamilton's  sup- 
posed discovery  is  a  fresh  form  of  what  seems  to  me  the  cardinal  error,  the  putting 
the  phenomena  of  matter  and  the  phenomena  of  mind  side  by  side.  Sir  William 
Hamilton,  starting  from  consciousness,  thinks  it  a  great  thing  to  be  able  to  put 
the  phenomena  of  matter  by  the  side  of  the  phenomena  of  mind,  which  of  course 
are  the  first  thing  he  supposes:  Mr  Mill,  starting  from  the  supposition  of  the  spa- 
tial universe,  thinks  it  a  great  thing  to  be  able  to  put  the  facts  of  mind  by  the  side 
of  the  facts  of  matter,  which  of  course  are  the  first  thing  he  supposes.  Sir  William 
Hamilton's,  supposition  of  oiur  being  conscious  of  matter  seems  to  me  to  be  wrong 
in  exactly  the  same  manner  as  Mr  Mill's  supposition,  which  I  should  describe  as 
that  we  phenomenally  know  mind— i.  e.  that  we  may  put  iU  facts,  and  that  ex- 
haustively, or  as  our  only  consideration  of  them,  by  the  side  of  physical  ones.     In 


Ill 


i 


83 


SIR  WILLIAM   HAMILTON  S 


P 


I: 


11 


hi 


i'f 


[chap. 


telligence  and  the  external  world :  only  that  in  saying  this  we 
must  be  careful  We  may  conceive  ourselves  as  we  are  pheno- 
menally, or  in  other  words,  corporeally :  we  may  in  this  view  be 
said  to  be  conscious  of  our  body :  that  is,  whatever  takes  place 
in  it  (speaking  generally)  has  corresponding  to  it  some  kind  of 
alteration  of  our  feeling:  our  body  is  in  this  view  a  great 
organ  of  sense,  a  vehicle  by  which  we  come  to  feel  the  exist- 
ence, as  similar  to  our  own  phenomenal  existence,  of  a  vast  ex- 
ternal universe  in  which  we  fill  a  place  :  in  this  use  of  the  term 
consciousness,  according  to  what  I  said  just  now,  that  con- 
sciousness of  the  non-ego  is  corresponding  to  that  of  the  ego, 
we  are  conscious  of  the  external  universe  in  the  same  way  as 
we  are  of  our  bodies,  knowing  the  one  by  distinction  from  the 
other,  or  (in  this  case)  by  the  mutual  antithetic  communication 
of  the  two,  only  the  self  is  what  is  in  the  first  instance  directly 
in  thought. 

But  in  all  this  we  are  supposing  ourselves  corporeal,  cor- 
poreal here  being  a  highly  complicated  notion,  which,  in  its 
complication,  we  certainly  do  not  immediately /eeZ  ourselves,  for 
what  we  mean  by  it  is  that  we  see  and  handle  ourselves  as  of 
such  and  such  a  shape  and  solidity,  a  tree  having  such  and 
such  another  shape,  &c.    What  is  the  root  of  this  in  feeling  ? 

The  question  whether,  as  the  root  of  all  our  after  objective 
knowledge,  there  can  be  admitted  what  we  may  call  a  relation 
of  locality  of  our  conscious  or  feeling  self,  taking  place  in  conse- 
quence of  the  extension  of  our  body — (we,  who  feel,  are  pheno- 
menally here — is  the  feeling  here?  our  arm  is  phenomenally  a 
part  of  us — is  the  feeling  in  it,  or  in  us?)— is  a  question  which 
has  two  sides,  a  physiological  and  a  logical  one.  The  physio- 
logical side,  whether,  so  far  as  that  science  goes,  we  are  to  be 
considered  as  having  a  locally  distributable,  or  on  the  other 
hand  concentrated  and  unitary,  feeling  self,  I  do  not  touch. 
But  the  logical  side  is  whether  the  notion  of  ascribing  locality 
to  feeling,  the  various  possible  modes  of  which,  I  have  said,  are 
pleasure,  pain,  duration,  &c.  can  be  even  admitted — whether  it 

respect  of  Sir  William  Hamilton — we  are  conscious  of  seeing,  and  just  the  problem 
of  philosophy  is  to  make  out  what  is  our  mental  relation  to  the  thing  we  see  :  what 
is  it  but  plastering  up  a  crack  to  say  that  the  word  '  conscious^ess '  will  cover  that 
also,  and  that  being  conscious  of  seeing  is  being  conscious  of  the  thing  we  see  ? 


v.] 


LECTURES   ON   METAPHYSICS. 


89 


is  not  like  talking  of  a  yellow  sound,  a  sour  colour,  or  various 
other  incongruities  of  thought.  No  doubt  locality  is  abun- 
dantly associated  with  feeling,  as  the  language  of  psychologists 
runs:  but  the  question  is  as  to  the  nature  of  this  association, 
and  how  we  are  to  conceive  it  beginning. 

Sir  William  Hamilton*s  view  of  our  knowledge  of  an  ex- 
ternal world  seems  to  be  that  we  feel  or  are  conscious  of, 
locally,  the  parts  of  our  body  and  the  changes  which  take 
place  as  to  them,  first,  and  that  then  with  our  body  we  feel, 
proceeding  onward,  outward  space  and  matter. 

It  seems  to  me  that  this  is  not  true  physically  (or  in  my 
language,  phenomenally),  and  that  if  it  were,  it  would  do 
nothing  to  explain  the  logical  difficulty. 

The  logical  difficulty  is.  Why,  instead  of  saying,  I  feel  in 
such  and  such  a  manner,  which  is  all  that,  with  any  of  us,  what 
we  are  pleased  to  call  knowledge,  when  we  get  to  the  bottom 
of  it,  amounts  to,  do  we  use  such  language  as,  I  see  (e.  g.)  this 
or  that  thing  ? 

Sir  William  Hamilton's  answer  .seems  to  be.  There  is  a  part 
of  space  [i.  e.  the  dimensions  of  our  body)  within  which  if  the 
thing  or  object  be,  the  knowledge  of  such  things  or  object  and 
the  feeling  in  such  and  such  a  manner,  are  two  identical  things, 
or  two  ways  of  expressing  the  same  thing.  Our  feeling  in  such 
and  such  a  way,  and  our  knowing  e.g.  the  form  of  an  image 
on  the  retina*  are,  we  are  to  suppose,  two  things  which  not  only 
are,  in  whatever  way,  associated  with  each  other,  but  which 
really  are  the  same  thing,  and  the  knowledge  of  the  image  on 
the  retina  leads,  in  after  experience,  to  the  knowledge  of  an 
outward  object  corresponding  with  it,  which  is  full  or  developed 
vision. 

Now  it  seems  to  me  not  only  that  we  do  not  know,  except 
by  later  science,  the  form  of  the  image  on  the  retina,  nor  that, 
if  we  did,  could  our  doing  so  be  considered  the  same  thing, 
the  same  (not  an  associated)  notion,  as  our  feeling  in  such  and 

^  Sir  William  Hamilton's  language  is,  I  believe,  and  so  far  as  I  know,  that 
what  we  really  perceive  is  the  rays  of  light  in  contact  with  the  eye.  It  is  Mr  Han- 
sel in  his  Metaphysics  who  says  that  what  we  see  is  the  image  on  the  retina, 
agreeing  in  this  "with  many  other  philosophers  (among  them  I  believe  Dr  Thomas 
Brown).  I  suppose  the  two  notions  are  in  substance  the  same.  See  forward  (p.  T45), 
where  passages  are  quoted. 


7^ 

f 


}'' 


\^ 


I 


90 


SIR   WILLIAM   HAMILTON  S 


[chap. 


such  a  manner.  The  blank  '  in  such  and  such  a  manner  *  must 
be  filled  up  with  some  possible  quality  or  character  of  feeling 
(pleasurably  e.g.),  and  this  cannot  be  the  same  thing  as  the 
other. 

What  takes  place  is:  correspondingly  with,  in  the  phe- 
nomenal world,  certain  movements  of  light,  and  then  of  the 
muscles  of  our  eye,  and  certain  changes,  mechanical  or  chemical, 
in  our  optic  nerve  and  brain,  there  exists  in  the  world  of  con- 
sciousness a  feeling  on  our  part,  which  we  call  the  sight  of  such 
and  such  an  object.  Of  course  the  feeling  is  what  it  is,  corre- 
spondingly with  the  changes  in  our  sensive  organ  being  what 
thei/  are :  and  in  this  way,  if  we  like  to  change  the  word  feeling 
from  being  a  neuter  verb  to  being  an  objective  term,  we  may 
say  we  feel  those  changes,  as  we  say,  'servit  servitutem':  bub 
we  are  not  conscious  of  them  in  the  sense  of  being  able  to  tell, 
independent  of  after  science,  what  they  are :  we  only  know  the 
variations  of  them  from  considering  them  correspondent  to  the 
variations  of  the  feeling. 

The  fact  that  our  body  is  the  vehicle  of  our  communication 
(so  to  speak)  with  the  external  world,  does  not  mean  that  we 
feel  our  body  and  its  parts  first,  and  then  the  external  world 
afterwards.  Our  body  is  a  part  of  matter  which  has  these  two 
characters,  that  disturbances  of  the  parts  of  it  are  accompanied 
with  feelings,  on  our  part,  of  pleasure  and  pain,  and  that  motion 
of  different  parts  of  it  follows  at  once  upon,  or  accompanies, 
our  will.  But  whenever  it  is  disturbed,  there  is  a  disturbing 
cause,  which  we  feel,  in  the  sense  of  being  aware  of  it,  contem- 
poraneously with  the  disturbance,  and  we  cannot  move  parts  of 
it  without  moving,  or  pressing,  something  beyond  it,  what  we 
are  aware  of  also  in  the  same  manner.  Though,  therefore,  our 
being  aware  of  it  is  accompanied  with  pleasure  and  pain,  or 
with  exertion,  and  in  this  way  it  is  specially  intimate  to  us,  yet 
we  are  as  much  aware  of  it  through  the  external  world  as  we 
are  aware  of  the  external  world  through  it. 

Sir  William  Hamilton  it  would  seem,  considers  that  he  has 
made  a  discovery  in  showing  that  we  are  conscious,  or  imme- 
diately aware,  of  the  existence  of  the  external  world.  It  appears 
to  me  unphilosophical  even  to  suppose  that  a  discovery  can  be 
made  of  the  kind  which  he  thinks  he  has  made. 


y-l 


LECTURES   ON  METAPHYSICS. 


91 


It  cannot  possibly  be  shown,  nor  would  there  be  any  purpose 
in  showing,  that  we  know  our  own  existence  (or,  more  generally, 
the  existence  of  mind)  and  the  existence  of  an  external  world,  in 
the  same  manner,  or  with  the  same  kind  of  knowledge.     So  far 
from  this,  it  is  evident  that  we  do  not.     The  question  is  not,  as 
to  both  one  and  the  other  being  certain  to  us  :  we  may  have  no 
inclination  to  scepticism  either  way,  but  if  we  try  to  realize  to 
ourselves  the  nature  of  our  certainty  of  the  two,  we  cannot  but 
understand  that  it  is  in  a  different  manner  that  it  is  realized 
in  the  two  cases,  and  that  to  the  extent  to  which  we  confine 
our  idea  of  knowledge  to,  or  let  it  be  absorbed  in  the  one  or  the 
other,  we  have  a  tendency  to  lose  our  certainty  as  to  the  other 
case,  or  to  become,  as  to  that,  sceptical.     So  far  as  we  try  to 
establish  the  one  certainty  on  the  basis  of  the  other,  we  have 
the  double  difficulty,    first,    that  we  have  no  logic  applicable 
to  such  rudimentary  thought,    or  which   can  give  validity  to 
inference  in  such  very  primitive  matter :  and  next,  that  even 
so  far  as  we  can  do  what  we  are  here  wishing  to  do,  the  second 
certainty,  whichever  of  the  two  we  suppose  such,  would  be  only 
derivative  and  secondary,  which   does  not  correspond  to  the 
character  which  seems  to  belong  to  it.     So  far  as  we  suppose 
two  independent  and  original  knowledges  of  different  kinds,  we 
must  give  up  the  idea  of  homogeneity  of  knowledge,  and  of  the 
necessary  commensurability  (so  to  speak),  so  far  as  they  are 
known,  of  the  things  known  in  it,  i.  e.  of  the  possibility  of  their 
being  brought  into  relation  one  with  the  other.    If  we  have  one 
sort  of  knowledge  in  which  the  forms  of  the  knowledge  or  the 
qualities  of  the  things  known  are  space,  solidity,  &c.  (whatever 
language  we  use)  and  another  kind  of  knowledge  in  which  such 
forms  or  qualities  are  pleasure,  pain,  &c. — knowledge  then  is 
not  a  common  ground  upon  which  the  things  which  are  known 
can  meet — not  a  way  in  which  they  can  be  brought  together  : 
there  are  two  worlds :  and  though  we  may  think  of  space  and 
solidity,  and  though  we  may  see  the  space  or  the  solid  body  in 
which  we  understand  the  pleasure  and  the  pain  to  be,  we  can- 
not bring  the  characters  of  the  one  world  into  relation  with 
those  of  the  other,  or  (in  different  words)  establish  any  relation 
except  a  very  imperfect  one  of  contemporaneousness,  between 


them. 


>/ 


92 


SIR  WILLUM  HAMILTON  S 


[chap. 


v.] 


LECTURES  ON   METAPHYSICS. 


93 


W' 


ffci  \ 


,}•; 


This  being  so,  we  may  either,  in  our  thought,  start  with 
supposed  knowledge  of  the  one  kind  or  the  same  of  the  other, 
and  in  that  case  what  we  have  to  aim  at  is  (that  which  it 
is  the  object  of  all  these  observations  to  urge)  the  keeping 
steady  to  our  first  principle  or  original  point  of  view.  The 
more  important  and  higher  point  of  view  is  that  given  by  con- 
sciousness or  thought  of  our  own  existence. 

Buc  since,  in  our  habitual  thought  and  life,  we  both  con- 
sider ourselves  to  exist  as  thinking  beings,  and  consider  the 
external  world  to  exist  also :  that  is,  equally  call  by  the  name 
of  existence  the  being  the  subject  of  pleasure,  pain,  will,  &c. 
and  the  being  the  subject  of  figure,  solidity,  colour  &c.:  how 
are  we  to  deal,  or  how  do  human  beings  deal,  with  these  two 
kinds  of  knowledge  (so  for  the  present  to  call  them)  when  they 
are  thus  in  conjunction? 

Practically,  where  the  one  has  been  considered  a  knowledge, 
the  other  has  been  considered  what  we  may  call  a  belief,  that 
is,  has  been  expressed  by  some  term  not  at  all  conveying,  in 
the  natural  sense  of  it,  any  less  notion  of  certainty  than  know- 
ledge conveys,  but  conveying  a  notion  of  the  difference  of  the 
manner  of  the  certainty. 

The  most  ordinary  use,  in  relation  to  each  other,  of  these 
two  terms  'knowledge'  and  'belief  is  for  'knowledge'  to  be 
applied  to  right  thought  in  the  phenomenalist  view  or  sphere, 
and  for  'belief  to  be  applied  to  the  feeling  (so  far  as  supposed 
reasonable)  which  we  have  of  our  own  unphenomenal  or  super- 
phenomenal  existence,  and  to  the  consequences  considered  to 
flow  from  that — ^the  world  or  sphere  of  super-phenomenal  rela- 
tions. A  view  more  or  less  phenomenalistic  is  natural  from  the 
first  to  our  manner  of  existence  here ;  distinct  phenomenalism 
(as  I  have  already  said)  is  on  the  one  side  what  experience 
developes,  but  it  is  also  on  the  other  a  manner  of  mental  action 
analogous  in  certain  respects  to  that  of  the  animals,  in  whom 
distinct  consciousness  is  not  begun. 

On  the  other  hand,  Keligion  in  many  forms,  the  higher 
philosophy  as  in  Plato,  and  the  lower  or  logical  philosophy  (as 
e.g.  in  Dr  Reid),  all  point  out  that  in  reason  the  name  '  know- 
ledge '  belongs  to  the  certainty  which  attaches  to  consciousness 
or  to  the  recognition  of  ourselves  as   thinking   or  as  mind. 


This  is  what  I  have  at  various  times  expressed  by  saying  that 
the  great  original  fact  to  each  of  us  is  not  the  existence  of  the 
universe  or  the  external  universe,  but  our  feeling  ('our'  sup- 
posing of  course  the  preliminary  feeling  of  ourselves)  that  it 
exists,  whatever  may  be  the  value  and  warrant  of  that  feeling. 
Knowledge  of  the  external  world  thus,  in  the  philosophical  view, 
descends  a  step,  and  has  to  be  dependent  on  the  consideration 
what  IS  this  value  and  warrant. 

Philosophical  language  therefore  has  usually  been  (rather 
startlingly  to  the  phenomenalist  or  merely  natm*al  habit  of 
thought)  that  we  believe  in  the  existence  of  the  external  world, 
on  whatever  ground.  The  ground  of  this  belief  has  been  vari- 
ously assigned  as  instinct,  habit,  &c.  Dr  Reid,  whom  I  particu- 
larize here  on  account  of  the  constant  reference  to  him  by  Sir 
William  Hamilton,  assigns  as  the  ground  'common  sense',  or 
the  common  sense  of  mankind.  The  question  has  been  evi- 
dently confused.  In  the  first  place,  it  took  the  form  in  the  last 
century  of  a  controversy  against  scepticism,  or  a  defence  of 
certainty  altogether,  and  the  possibility  of  such,  against  peo- 
ple supposed  to  deny  such  possibility.  But  this  is  quite  an 
accident  of  it.  The  discussion  of  the  nature  of  our  certainty 
of  an  external  world  is  of  itself  a  simply  philosophical  one,  and 
should  so  be  treated. 

Again,  the  question  of  our  knowledge  of  the  external  world 
is  the  same  as  that  of  the  knowledge  of  our  corporeal  selves. 
This  people  are  very  confused  in  seeing,  nor  is  it  wonderful 
they  should  be.  For  in  the  reasonings  by  which  the  external 
world,  as  independent  of  our  mind,  was  supposed  to  be  anni- 
hilated, our  corporeal  senses,  the  existence  of  which  was  a  part 
of  the  matter  in  dispute,  had,  for  the  purposes  of  the  proof  (and 
that  not  a  proof  by  way  of  reductio  ad  absurdum)  to  be  sup- 
posed existing.  Under  such  circumstances,  whatever  the  value  of 
the  conclusion,  there  was  danger  as  to  the  validity  of  the  proof. 

The  point  and  interest  of  Berkeley's  proceedings  seem  to 
have  been  his  putting  together  two  notions  which  reallj/  do  not 
belong  to  the  same  manner  of  thought  ^  viz.  the  philosophical 

*  Not  but  that  they  mtghl  do  so,  bmng  both  true,  and  Berkeley  on  both  of  them 
in  my  view,  right.  In  fact,  Berkeley  was  so  thoroughly  right  (setting  aside  his 
affirmative  opinions  as  to  the  meaning  of  the  spatial  universe  and  the  things  in  it, 


I) 


94 


SIR  WILUAM   HAMILTON  S 


[chap. 


v.] 


LECTURES   ON   METAPHYSICS. 


95 


iti  I 


'u 


lil 


'      fl. 


K 


notion  that  the  external  world  cannot  be  known  to  exist  in  the 
same  manner  in  which  we  know  ourselves  to  do  so,  and  another 
notion,  to  the  efifect  that  by  the  existence  of  the  external  world 
is  meant  the  same  thing  as  the  actual,  phenomenal,  existence 
of  the  logical  subject  of  the  various  qualities,  (shape,  size, 
solidity,  colour,  &c.)  which  we  speak  of  matter  as  having.  By 
giving  his  view  the  one  or  other  of  these  two  forms  (that  of 
the  denial  of  a  knowledge  of  the  external  world  in  the  same 
sense  in  which  we  know  ourselves,  and  that  of  the  denial  of  the 
actual  existence  of  the  logical  subject  as  above)  according,  in 
general,  as  he  turned  it  towards  the  philosophers  or  towards 
the  vulgar,  Berkeley  commanded  to  a  considerable  extent, 
though  always  as  to  a  paradox,  the  assent  of  both. 

Sir  William  Hamilton  seems  to  consider  Dr  Reid  to  have 
held  confusedly  and  with  mistake  the  doctrine,  in  this  respect, 
which  he  himself  exhibits  clearly  and  right.  Really,  he  may 
be  said  to  take  Dr  Reid's  'common  sense',  and  instead  of 
describing  it  as  a  ground  and  a  legitimate  ground  of  a  belief 
that  the  external  world  exists,  to  consider  it  a  proof  in  us  of  a 
consciousness  of  this  external  world. 

^  Our  being  conscious  of  a  thing,  and  every  body  that  we 
know  of  (apparently  therefore  in  virtue  of  his  human  nature) 
thinking  it,  are  two  very  good  sources  of  certainty  for  us,  but 
they  are  different,  and  the  certainty  which  they  produce  is 
different.  K  we  call  the  certainty  in  the  former  case  know- 
ledge, we  must  call  the  certainty  in  the  other  by  some  different 

\name:  we  will  say  'belief.  Sir  William  Hamilton  labours 
hard  to  found  our  certainty  of  the  existence  of  the  external 
world  on  consciousness,  or  to  make  it,  in  his  language,  the  result 
of  immediate  perception.  The  way  to  show  how  far  this  is  so, 
is  carefully  to  analyze  consciousness :  a  process  at  least  very 
difficult.  But  Sir  William  Hamilton  seems  to  me  in  a  very 
unphilosophical  manner  to  reiterate  the  fact  that  the  mass  of 

that  what  he  said  would  have  been  quite  uuremarkable,  if  it  had  not  been  that  he 
started  with  the  Lockian  supposition  of  ourselves  in  the  middle  of  a  spatial  uni- 
verse, which  made  the  conclusion  he  came  to  seem  absurd,  and  invited  the  unphi- 
losophical refutations  of  it  by  kicking  things  down,  or  whatever  it  might  be.  The 
drawing  the  conclusion  invalidated  the  premises  it  was  drawn  from,  under  which 
circumstances  the  mind  gets  into  the  state  into  which  the  old  sophistical  puzzlers 
tried  to  bring  it,  unless  we  suppose  a  redactio  ad  absardum. 


men  do  think  in  such  and  such  a  manner,  as  a  proof  that  what 
they  thus  think  is  a  fact  of  conscioicsness.  What  they  thus 
think  may  have  as  much  certainty  as  if  it  were  a  fact  of  con- 
sciousness— that  is  not  the  question:  but  when  what  we  are 
investigating  is  the  nature  of  the  certainty,  the  fact  that  any 
number  of  men  think  so  may  be  a  legitimate  ground  for  our 
believing  in  that  manner,  but  can  never  be  a  proof  of  its  being 
a  fact  of  consciousness. 

The  analysis  of  consciousness  is  so  difficult,  and  when  it 
goes  beyond  the  simplest  observations,  so  deceitful,  that  I  am 
disposed  to  think  (I  will  not  say  however  altogether)  that 
nothing  should  be  referred  to  consciousness  in  regard  to  which 
even  the  doubt  can  arise  whether  it  belongs  to  consciousness  or 
not.  Pleasure  or  pain  e.g.  are  referred  to  consciousness  or 
feeling,  for  the  simple  reason  that  except  as  matters  of  con- 
sciousness they  cannot  be  conceived  as  existing  at  all.  But,  if 
I  were  called  upon  to  produce  a  fact  of  consciousness,  I  should 
be  disposed  to  assign  as  such  the  direct  negation  of  that  which 
Sir  William  Hamilton  assigns,  and  to  say  that  if  we  are  con- 
scious of  anything,  one  thing  of  which  we  are  so  is  of  our  own 
existence  as  feeling,  thinking,  &c.  in  a  manner  not  only  differ- 
ent from,  but  out  of  relation  with,  that  which  we,  in  advancing 
experience,  understand  as  the  manner  of  existence  of  the  ex- 
ternal world:  that  consciousness  thus,  while  embracing  (if  we 
like  so  to  speak)  a  non-ego  as  distinguished  from  the  ego,  dis- 
tinctly guards  itself  against,  throws  off  from  itself,  that  non-ego 
in  the  investment  which  it  acquires,  in  whatever  manner,  of 
phenomenal  or  sensible  existence.  It  is  a  fact  of  conscious- 
ness, if  any  is,  that  existence  as  life,  thinkingness,  feeling- 
ness,  the  exercise  of  will,  is  not  the  same  thing  with  existence 
as  visibleness,  tangibleness,  measurableness,  audibleness,  &c. : 
that  they  are  known,  so  far  as  they  are  known,  in  a  different 
manner:  it  is  a  fact  of  consciousness  again  that  existence  of 
the  first  kind  is  known  to  us  in  ourselves  by  consciousness :  if 
any  logic  is  allowed  as  to  these  rudiments  of  thought,  we  may 
surely  then  say  that  it  is  a  fact  of  consciousness,  that  it  is  in 
some  other  way  than  by  consciousness  that  we  know,  so  far  as 
we  know,  existence  of  the  latter  kind. 

I  wish  most  carefully  to  guard  against  mere  verbal  discus- 


I.* 


II'' 


96 


SIR   WILLIAM    HAMILTON  S 


[chap. 


sions  on  the  word  'consciousness*.  All  our  knowledge,  as 
knowledge,  is  consciousness:  Sir  William  Hamilton  has  well 
exhibited  the  philosophy  of  knowledge  as  the  analysis  of  con- 
sciousness. But  consciousness,  thus  widely  understood,  is  ana- 
lysable  in  two  manners:  into  reflexion  or  self-consciousness  on 
the  one  side,  and  that  on  the  other  which  is  understood  to  have 
a  bearing,  or  to  relate  to  something,  beyond  ourselves :  and  again 
into  that  which  is  original,  and  has  never  had,  as  to  our  mind, 
any  other  character  than  that  of  consciousness,  and  that  of 
(or  in)  which  we  have  become  conscious,  or  which  we  have  come 
to  know,  through  (or  in  conjunction  with)  some  sort  of  sug- 
gestion different  from  the  above  original  consciousness:  we 
know  ourselves  by  self-consciousness  or  reflexion :  we  know  the 
existence  of  a  not-self  by  consciousness,  in  so  far  as  we  do  not, 
and  cannot,  conceive  ourselves  as  constituting  an  universe :  but 
we  know  the  form  or  qualities  of  this  not-self  {i.  e.  the  sensible 
world)  as  something  entirely  dissimilar  to  the  form  and  quali- 
ties which  in  ourselves  we  are  conscious  of.  This  ought  not 
indeed  (as  I  have  said)  to  be  called  knowledge,  if  knowledge 
is  what  is  built  on  consciousness:  we  may  call  it  belief:  by 
which  we  need  mean  no  more  than  that,  without  the  slightest 
doubt  as  to  matter  (the  form  and  qualities  of  the  not-self) 
existing,  the  certainty  which  we  have  of  it  is  not  the  same  (in 
kind,  ie,  for  in  degree,  for  all  that  I  know,  it  may  be)  as  the 
certainty  which  we  have  of  our  own  existence. 

I  can  see  nothing  in  Sir  William  Hamilton's  doctrine  except 
assertion  that  it  is  the  same,  without  any  attempt  at  reason  for 
the  assertion  except  what  I  have  already  spoken  of,  the  notion 
(if  I  may  so  describe  it)  of  a  local  coincidence  of  thinking  ex- 
istence and  material  existence  on  the  occasion  of  what  we  call 
a  sensation  in  a  particular  part  of  the  body.  We  feel  that  part 
of  our  body  and  what  is  in  contact  with  it,  I  understand  him  to 
say,— that  is,  we  feel  or  are  conscious  of  matter — in  the  same 
way  as  we  feel  or  are  conscious  of  mind,  our  thinking  selves. 
We  know  thus  from  the  first,  in  the  same  way  and  with  a  like 
original  knowledge,  mind  and  matter.  In  different  words,  we 
have  an  immediate  knowledge  of  matter  (or  the  external  world), 
and  the  establishment  of  this  immediate  knowledge  Sir  William 
Hamilton  looks  upon  as  an  important  discovery. 


v.] 


LECTURES   ON   METAPHYSICS. 


97 


All  this  is  exactly  that  confusion  between  two  lines  of 
thought  which  it  is  the  purpose  of  what  I  am  writing  to  criti- 
cize. We  feel  (say)  the  prick  of  a  pin,  and  feel  it  locally ,  though 
in  the  nature  of  the  reference  to  the  locality  there  is  much,  I 
suppose,  for  physiologists  to  discuss.  But  though  we  may  use 
one  word,  as  impression,  for  the  two  (so  to  call  it)  coincident 
things,  the  movement  of  certain  particles  of  matter  (in  the  pin 
and  in  our  finger),  and  our  feeling  of  pain,  the  two  things  belong 
to  two  different  regions  of  thought,  and  the  only  way  in  which, 
supposing  the  two  both  existent,  we  can  be  certain  of  their 
being  related  to  each  other,  is  that  they  are  contemporaneous. 
The  supposed  locality  of  the  feeling  is  a  complicated  fact,  and 
no  matter  of  original  certainty.  Sir  William  Hamilton's  view 
is  (as  I  understand  it)  that  the  coincidence  brings  the  two  kinds 
of  things,  our  feeling  e.  g.  (on  the  one  side,  the  form  of  the  pin 
on  the  other),  into  the  same  world  of  thought,  and  that  we  are  ^ 
aware  of  the  form  of  the  pin  with  the  sam.e  consciousness,  the 
same  immediacy,  with  which  we  are  aware  of  the  pain  which  it 
produces.  Surely  this  is  not  so.  They  belong  to  different  kinds 
of  thought,  and  the  knowledge  in  the  two  cases  is  different  If 
we  call  knowledge,  or  if  we  call  immediate  knowledge,  what 
we  know  in  the  latter  case,  we  may  reasonably  call  the  other 
belief  or  knowledge  not  immediate.  In  the  one  we  might,  con- 
ceivably, be  deceived :  in  the  other  we  could  not  be.  / 

Sir  William  Hamilton  calls  his  doctrine  of  the  immediate- 
ness  of  our  knowledge  of  the  external  world  by  the  name  of 
Natural  Realism  or  Natural  Dualism^ :  the  mass  of  philosophers, 
who  have  looked  upon  this  knowledge  as,  in  comparison  with 
our  knowledge  of  our  own  existence,  something  which  required, 
so  to  speak,  to  give  an  account  of  itself,  a  belief,  a  mediate 
knowledge  (or  however  they  might  express  it) — being  called  by 
him  Cosmothetic  Idealists  or  Hypothetic  Dualists. 

The  classification  here  made  of  philosophers  seems  of  very 
little  value,  making,  as  it  does,  no  account  of  the  purpose  and 
method  of  the  various  philosophies,  nor  any  distinction  between 
what  a  philosopher  assumed  at  the  beginning  and  the  results 
which  he  considered  himself  to  arrive  at.  As  to  the  Hypothetic 
Dualists,  it  is  to  be  observed  that  almost  all  philosophers  have 

^  Lectures,  Vol.  i.  p.  292. 


98 


SIR  WILLIAM   HAMILTON  S 


[chap. 


I 


U<  I 


m 
11*' 


been  dualists,  (nay,  have  not  all?)  in  admitting  a  *  besides-self* 
as  well  as  a  self  or  mind,  Berkeley  as  much  so  as  Sir  William 
Hamilton :  our  sensations  were  not  in  his  view  causeless  or  merely 
self-modifications,  only  he  did  not  consider  the  cause  of  them  to 
be  what  we  are  here  calling  *  the  external  world*.  The  name 
'  Hypothetic'  therefore  is  little  applicable  to  these  philosophers, 
nor,  it  seems  to  me,  is  that  of  Natural  Dualism  to  Sir  William 
Hamilton's  view,  which  I  should  rather  describe  as  a  sort  of 
Monism  (in  language  of  his  own),  or  an  attempt  to  fuse  toge- 
ther, as  objects  of  one  kind  of  knowledge,  two  kinds  of  things 
(if  they  may  be  called  things)  so  different  as  feelings  and 
material  qualities  \ 

The  way  in  which  I  should  state  what  seems  to  me  the  fact 
is  this ;  We  feel  ourselves  as  mentally  living,  or  know  our  ex- 


^  In  speaking  of  what  all  or  almost  all  philosophers  have  thought  I  speak  with 
unfeigned  diffidence,  not  only  because  I  have  a  very  imperfect  knowledge  of  the 
history  of  philosophy  compared  v^  ith  Sir  William  Hamilton's,  but  because  I  seem 
to  myself  to  have  a  different  notion  from  his  of  what  such  a  knowledge  should  con- 
sist in.  As  a  branch  of  study,  what  I  should  mean  in  the  first  instance  by  the 
history  of  philosophy  is  a  (probably  rather  loose)  general  account  of  the  course  of 
philosophical  speculation,  which  is  an  important  branch  of  literature,  and  will 
make  a  man  know,  in  the  general,  what  philosophy  has  concerned  itself  with :  but 
in  case  any  one  means  to  make  a  more  thorough  study  of  it,  I  think  there  is 
another  branch  of  study,  so  to  call  it,  which  he  wants  first.  This  is  '  interpreta- 
tion': penetration  and  conscientiousness  in  entering  into  people's  thought.  And 
in  order  to  this  a  man  must  think  much  himself.  He  is  a  merely  superficial  (which 
in  this  case  is  inaccurate)  reporter  unless  he  understands  and  has  felt  the  phQoso- 
pher's  doubts  and  difficulties.  For  thought  like  this  to  co-exist  with  an  extensive 
literary  knowledge  may  be  difficult — I  will  not  say — perhaps  I  may  be  making  the 
reader  think  no  man  can  be  a  historian  of  philosophy,  as  Crassus  that  no  man  can 
be  an  orator,  or  Imlac  that  no  man  can  be  a  poet — but  anyhow  I  hope  that  I  am 
ennobling  his  notion  of  the  task. 

In  the  present  case  the  philosophers  are  bundled  up  together,  and  a  vast  quan- 
tity of  them  represented  as  allowing  nothing  but  'modifications  of  the  ego'.  But  I 
am  very  doubtful  what  this  really  means.  A  sentence  for  instance  like  the  follow- 
ing (Vol.  II.  p.  29,)  quite  staggers  me.  *  Others,  again,  deny  to  the  mind  not  only 
any  consciousness  of  an  external  non-ego,  but  of  a  non-ego  at  all,  and  hold  that 
what  the  mind  immediately  perceives,  and  mistakes  for  an  external  object,  is  only 
the  ego  itself  peculiarly  modified.'  Whether  Sir  William  Hamilton  means  here 
that  the  philosophers  whom  he  speaks  of  suppose  the  notion  of  external  objects, 
and  a  wrong  assignment  to  that  class  of  what  belongs  to  another — in  which  case 
they  would  be  most  thorough  Dualists — or  whether  the  mis-psychological  iron  has 
entered  so  deeply  into  his  soul  that  he  can  never,  in  the  most  abstract  regions  of 
thought,  get  rid  of  the  notion  of  '  external  objects*  himself,  I  cannot  tell. ' 


v.] 


LECTURES   ON   METAPHYSICS. 


99 


istence  as  thinking  and  feeling  beings,  and  with  this  have  what 
we  may  call  a  sub-consciousness  of  something  besides  ourselves; 
or,  as  I  have  above  expressed  it,  that  we  are  not  everjrthing — 
not  the  universe.  This  is  our  most  immediate  or  absolutely 
necessary  knowledge :  without  this  we  should  not  be  we,  to 
think  and  feeL  We  feel  ourselves  with  less  intimacy  and  less 
immediateness  to  be  corporeal  or  (as  I  have  called  it)  pheno- 
menal beings,  and,  what  is  a  part  of  the  same  feeling,  to  be 
locally  portions  of  a  material  or  phenomenal  world.  There  is 
no  harm  in  describing  this  latter  feeling  as  consciousness :  in 
fact  it  is  so  :  only  it  is  a  consciousness  which  might  be  illusion, 
whereas  the  former  consciousness  cannot:  we  feel  as  if  we  lived 
in  a  material  universe,  and  people  have  been  found  like  Bishop 
Berkeley  to  say  that  though  we  feel  as  if  we  so  lived,  yet  we 
really  do  not  so  live:  but  there  is  no  meaning  in  saying  we 
feel  as  if  we  felt  and  thought :  here  then  is  real  immediate- 
ness: and  no  one  can  say  that  though  we  feel  as  if  we  felt, 
yet  we  really  do  not  feel.  Hence  the  second  consciousness, 
though  consciousness  if  we  like  to  call  it  so,  is  still,  in  com- 
parison with  the  other,  mediate  or  belie£ 

What  we  are  conscious  of  in  this  way  is  not  matter,  but 
ourselves  as  material :  and  the  meaning  of  this  is  simply  that 
a  certain  portion  of  our  feelings,  so  it  is,  are  suggestive  of  what,  as 
we  feel  it,  we  may  call  a  communication  (or  in  language  which  has 
been  used  by  some,  '  a  conflict')  between  us  and  what  is  not  'we' 
going  on  in  a  particular  manner,  (which  manner  is  what  is 
meant  by  the  common  confused  term,  'sensation').  This  com- 
munication, as  our  feeling  suggests  the  existence  of  it,  is,  as  I 
have  described,  between  us  and  what  is  not  we.  This  same 
communication  if  phenomenally  viewed,  or  studied  as  a  matter 
of  physiology  by  what  I  have  called  a  disengaged  intelligence, 
is  only  between  one  portion  of  matter  and  another,  namely,  our 
bodies  and  what  is  around  them.  That  is,  the  communication,  and 
with  it  the  existence  of  matter,  is  only,  from  the  side  of  feeling, 
something  that  feeling,  so  it  is,  suggests:  and  feeling  sugges- 
tive (as  distinguished  from  the  immediate  feeling  above)  might, 
conceivably,  be  all  wrong:  there  might  be  no  external  world 
at  all.  On  the  other  hand,  from  the  side  of  phenomenalism, 
the  communication  is  the  certain  fact,  and  the  fact  which  can 

7-2 


i\ 


100 


SIR   WILLIAM    HAMILTON  S 


[chap. 


v.] 


LECTURES   ON   METAPHYSICS. 


101 


be  compared  with  other  phenomenal  facts  :  that  along  with  the 
communication  there  go  feelings  of  a  sentient  being  is  something 
which  phenomenalism  as  such,  can  only  take  as  supposed  cause 
(or  causes)  of  various  effects,  which  might  be  caused  otherwise. 

The  study  of  this  communication,  what  should  have  been 
called  jEsthetics,  is  of  course  most  interesting :  but  the  keeping 
in  mind  whether  our  point  of  view  is  that  of  consciousness,  or 
that  of  physiology,  is  important  for  the  success  of  it. 

The  communication,  so  far  as  we  are  to  conceive  such,  be- 
tween mind  and  matter,  or  (in  other  words)  between  feeling 
and  the  spatial  universe,  is  a  different  notion  from  that  of  the 
communication  between  the  matter  or  nerves  of  our  body  and 
matter  extraneous  to  it,  with  which  latter  communication 
feeUng  on  our  part  is  some  way  correspondent.  Such  questions 
as  those  of  immediateness  of  knowledge  have  all  really  refer- 
ence to  the  former  communication.  In  reference  to  this  former 
communication,  we  might  either  consider  the  notion  conceivable 
and  reasonable,  but  the  thing,  except  by  some  extraordinary 
agency  (the  meaning  of  this  will  appear  shortly),  impossible: 
or  we  might  consider  the  notion  reasonable  and  the  thing  pos- 
sible ;  or  we  might  consider,  which  is  what  I  am  disposed  to 
do,  that  there  is  something  confused  in  the  notion. 

Perhaps  it  is  more  correct  to  describe  the  first  of  these 
views  as  the  considering  the  notion  unreasonable,  but  still  the 
thing,  or  something  amounting  to  the  thing,  by  some  contri- 
vance (we  may  almost  say)  such  as  a  pre-established  harmony, 
or  by  the  continued  interposition  of  divine  power,  possible. 
We  look  now  upon  theories  of  this  kind  as  unphilosophical,  but 
the  philosophers  who  made  them  had  the  great  merit  of  seeing 
clearly  what  we  do  not  always  see,  how  feeling  and  the  qualities 
of  matter  belong,  as  I  have  expressed  it,  to  two  different  kinds 
of  thought.  All  that  we  know,  or,  it  seems  to  me,  can  know, 
as  to  the  relation  of  the  feeling  in  any  case  to  the  contempo- 
raneous nervous  or  cerebral  disturbance,  is  that  they  are  con- 
temporaneous. Theories  like  that  of  a  pre-established  har- 
mony, unreasonable  enough  it  may  be,  yet  exhibiting  the  two 
streams  running  side  by  side,  have  the  merit  of  clearly  bringing 
home  to  us  that  this  relation  of  contemporaneousness  is  as  far 
as  we  can  get. 


The  second  view  given  above,  to  the  effect  that  the  notion 
of  a  communication  between  mind  and  matter,  feeling  and 
space,  is  reasonable,  and  the  thing  possible  or  the  fact,  seems 
to  have  been  held  by  those  philosophers  who  considered  that 
the  primary  qualities  of  matter  were  like  their  ideas  or  mental 
representations,  whereas  the  secondary  were  not:  this  being, 
as  I  understand  it,  equivalent  to  saying,  that  in  respect  of  the 
primary  qualities,  the  mind  and  matter  (or  feeling  and  space) 
actually  met,  that  there  was  a  communication  or  something 
common  to  both,  whereas  in  respect  of  the  secondary  qualities 
there  was  only  a  correspondence,  or  contemporaneousness,  be- 
tween feeling  on  the  one  side  and  the  presence  of  the  qualities 
of  matter  on  the  other.  This  notion  as  to  the  primary  quali- 
ties, which  is  to  the  effect,  that  in  the  case  of  knowledge  of 
them,  the  qualities  of  matter  might  be  predicable  of  feeling, 
for  otherwise  there  could  be  no  resemblance  between  the  idea 
and  the  material  object,  was  I  suppose  suggested  by  such  things 
as  the  image  on  the  retina.  The  image,  on  the  nerves,  of  a 
square  object,  did  look  something  like  a  square  idea.  The  re- 
tinal surfaces,  at  once  sensible  and  capable  of  square  figure, 
seemed  to  be  a  meeting-ground  of  mind  and  matter.  The  thing 
forgotten  was,  that  what  felt  was  not  the  retina  which  was  thus 
figured,  but  /,  and  though,  in  calling  it  sensible,  we  imply  a 
particular  relation  of  it  to  this  J,  the  nature  of  this  relation 
was  still  the  undetermined  question. 

I  can  only  see,  in  Sir  William  Hamilton's  doctrine  of  imme- 
diate knowledge,  the  re-introduction,  in  different  language,  of  a 
notion  similar  to  this. 

I  am  aware  that,  as  in  a  great  many  philosophical  errors, 
there  is  a  truth  involved  in  this  notion  of  the  resemblance  of 
the  ideas  of  primary  qualities  to  their  prototypes.  The  form 
which  this  truth  bears  to  me,  is  this :  the  matter  of  our  bodies 
and  that  of  the  external  world  seem  to  communicate  in  two 
different  manners,  which  we  may  call  mechanical  and  chemical: 
correspondingly  to  the  first  we  have  feeling  of  the  kind  which 
we  call  active,  i.e.  we,  with  more  or  less  of  attentiveness,  exert 
our  will :  correspondingly  to  the  latter  we  have  feeling  of  the  kind 
we  call  passive :  we  feel  more  or  less  of  simple  pleasure  and  pain. 
In  saying  above  'seem  to  communicate  in  two  manners',  what  I 


f 


■i 


b  I  m.  "■■!■, 


102 


SIR   WILLIAM   HAMILTON  S 


[chap. 


mean  to  express  is  this :  it  is  possible,  perhaps,  for  close  physio- 
logical observation  to  make  out  that  the  difference  in  the  consti- 
tution of  one  and  another  of  our  nerves,  which  fits  them  for  one 
and  another  purpose,  is  only  at  the  bottom,  mechanical,  and  that 
all  that  takes  place  in  them  is  really  only  motion  of  homogeneous 
elements,  and  correspondingly  with  this,  it  is  corweivahly  possible 
for  us  to  follow  out  our  consciousness  to  such  minuteness  that  in 
the  pleasure  and  pain  (contemporaneous  with  the  movements) 
we  may  discover  really  elements  (so  to  speak)  of  volitional  effort, 
attraction  and  repulsion,  acquiescence  and  shrinking,  &c. — 
about  all  this  possible  ultimate  analysis  I  say  nothing,  only 
considering  in  the  meantime  the  fact  to  be  as  I  have  described. 
The  fact  which  the  above-named  enon'eous  notion  as  to 
primary  qualities  seems  to  me  indistinctly  to  represent,  is  this : 
that  active  feeling,  exertion  of  our  will,  is  homogeneous  in  our 
view :  pleasure  and  pain  (passive  feehng)  are  both  infinitely  va- 
rious, not  always  even  readily  distinguishable  the  one  from  the 
other,  neither  of  them  suggesting  that  kind  of  attention  to  them 
which  could  make  measurement,  and  such  that  the  different 
kinds  of  them  have  scarcely  any  comparability  the  one  to  the 
other.  And  as  active  feeling  is,  in  its  different  exertions,  homo- 
geneous in  ourselves,  so  it  is  what  we  seem  to  be  able  reasonably 
to  assure  ourselves  is  the  same  in  us  and  in  others :  with  passive 
feeling  this  is  in  no  respect  so :  as  has  abundantly  been  said, 
what  I  see  as  green  another  man  may  see  as  blue,  and  the  differ- 
ence be  for  ever  undiscoverable.  Hence  we  feel  the  amount  of 
exertion  of  will,  and  in  so  feeling  we  feel  ourselves  also  in 
relation  with  other  beings  which  exert  will:  mechanical  sensa- 
tion is  measurement,  whereas  chemical  remains  in  this  par- 
ticular nearly  sterile.  The  reason  why  I  have  mentioned  this 
here,  is,  because,  in  this  measurement,  we  have  something  like 
an  actual  meeting  of  mind  and  matter,  of  feeling  on  the  one 
side,  of  space  and  solidity  on  the  other.  "Vv  iien  therefore  philo- 
sophers said  that  the  ideas  of  primary  qualities,  and  not  of 
secondary,  were  resemblances  of  the  qualities  (the  primary 
qualities  being,  speaking  generally,  those  known  by  mechanical 
sensation),  they  meant,  in  a  not  good  way,  to  express  what  I 
will  for  a  moment  call  an  approach  to  each  other  of  mind  and 
matter  in  the  way  which  I  have  above  described. 


v.] 


LECTURES   ON   METAPHYSICS. 


103 


This  approach  is  in  fact  by  means  of  the  idea  of  motion. 
Time  or  duration  belongs  to,  or  is  an  attribute  of,  mind  or  feel- 
ing, no  one  doubts.  Does  locality  also?  Has  feeling  'daseyn'? 
The  attributing  locality  to  feeling  in  virtue  of  passive  sensation 
is  as  we  have  seen,  very  difficult.  When  we  are  investigating 
physiologically  what  we  call  the  seat  of  feeling,  what  we  want 
is,  to  find  the  portion  of  the  body,  with  the  material  modifica- 
tions of  which  portion  the  feeling  is  exactly  {finally  we  might  say) 
contemporaneous.  So  far  as  the  feeling  or  consciousness  itself 
tells  us,  this  part,  scientifically  found,  is  rarely  or  never  the  seat 
of  it.  A  man's  feeling,  so  far  as  ifee//*  bears  witness,  may  be  in 
his  supposed  leg,  which  he  has  lost  long  ago. 

The  attribution  of  locality  to  feeling  in  virtue  of  active 
sensation  seems  to  present  less  difficulty.  A  feeling  of  ours  of 
this  kind,  we  say,  moves  or  is  the  means  of  moving  our  arm, 
and  must  therefore  be  locally  present  or  in  communication  with 
the  arm  to  do  so. 

I  am  not  going  to  discuss  this:  only  to  say  thus  much.  The 
notion  implies  the  unity  of  the  two  ideas,  force  as  one  of  the 
ingredients  (so  to  speak)  of  motion  and  pressure,  and  force  (or 
activity)  as  the  source  of  change,  or  that  which  gives  beginning 
to  what  did  not  exist  before.  That  our  volition  is  a  real  cause 
of  the  movement  of  our  own  body,  or,  in  other  words,  that  our  wiU 
is  a  reality  and  our  supposed  consciousness  of  it  not  a  delusion, 
I  hold  most  thoroughly,  and  if  we  like  from  this  to  draw  the 
conclusion  that  our  will,  acting  locally,  must  have  locality, 
valeat  quantum.  But  I  think  that  the  only  way  in  which  we 
are  able  to  conceive  these  things,  and  to  investigate  them  fruit- 
fully, is  to  keep,  even  Aere,  the  two  lines  of  thought  which  I 
have  endeavoured  to  exhibit,  separate:  to  put  no  stress  upon 
the  phenomenalist  to  admit  what  cannot  be  expressed  in  quali- 
ties of  matter,  nor  on  the  other  hand,  to  assert  against  him 
that  we  are  conscious  of  anything  which  he  from  his  premises  and 
by  reference  to  those  qualities,  can  disprove :  keeping  however 
in  mind  that  we,  in  the  position  of  consciousness,  are  nearer  the 
source  of  the  stream  of  knowledge  than  he,  and  that  he  can 
have  none  of  it,  in  the  entire  view  of  things,  except  as  we  allow 
it  to  pass  to  him.  It  may  be  a  question  whether  we  have  an 
arm  at  all  (for  all  our  immediate  knowledge  is  that  we  feel  or 


I' 


'J 


•J' 

ill 


104 


SIR   WILLIAM    HAMILTON  S 


[chap. 


think  we  have),  and  if  this  is  denied,  the  matter,  as  to  certain 
knowledge,  is  settled  for  him  and  for  us  alike.  Only  every 
reason  which  goes  to  justify  our  belief  that  we  have  an  arm  or 
that  our  arm  exists,  goes  also  to  justify  our  belief  that  we  move 
it,  and  that  it  rests  with  us,  uncertain  till  we  determine  it, 
whether  it  is  moved  or  not.  But  for  the  purposes  of  research, 
there  are  two  sets  of  things  or  considerations — on  the  one  side 
the  circumstances  which  determine  our  will,  on  the  other  the 
qualities  of  our  arm  as  matter — which,  like  oil  and  water,  will  not 
mix  together.  We  create  then,  or  abstract,  the  phenomenalist 
view,  from  which  origination  is  excluded,  and  in  which  there  are 
instead  of  it  only  relations  of  time  and  perhaps  of  mechanical 
force :  and  since  feeling,  whatever  it  may  be  susceptible  of  be- 
sides, is  susceptible  of  these  relations  of  time,  we  let  feeling  so 
far  into  phenomenaHsm,  or  in  other  words,  we  let  the  two  lines 
of  thought  run  together  in  this  particular,  though  further  than 
this  we  cannot  do  so  without  confusion. 

What  I  have  said  is  not  exactly  as  I  meant  to  say  it,  but 
I  think  there  is  conveyed  in  it  what  I  should  have  said,  namely, 
the  reason  why  I  think  that  even  the  idea  of  a  communication 
between  mind  and  matter,  feeling  and  space,  further  than  as 
a  relation  of  contemporaneousness  is  such,  is  not  reasonable. 

The  measurement  which  I  have  last  spoken  of,  or  in  other 
words,  the  mental  conversion  of  so  much  effort  of  will  into  so 
much  space  traversed  or  so  much  motion  resisted,  is  a  manner 
of  sensation,  and  far  the  most  important  manner,  its  import- 
ance arising  from  this,  that  by  means  of  the  relation  of  amount 
or  magnitude  (measurableness)  the  qualities  of  matter  and  of 
mind  do  seem  to,  or  do  in  some  measure,  approach  each  other. 
But  they  do  not  meet  or  mix:  amount  of  will  exerted,  and 
amount  of  space  traversed,  though  both  amounts  and  so  far  in 
relation,  belong  to  different  worlds  of  thought. 

In  respect  then  of  that  kind  of  form  of  objects  which  is 
given  by  relations  of  space  and  solidity,  mind  and  matter 
(feeling  and  space),  though  they  in  a  manner  approach,  do  not 
meet  or  mix.  The  kind  of  form  of  objects  in  relation  to  which 
they  do  meet  is  the  €lBo<:,  principle,  meaning,  purpose  of  them, 
tha,t  which  gives  to  each  its  imity.  This  kind  of  form  may  be 
considered  at  once  an  attribute  of  the  material  object  and  of 


v.] 


LECTURES  ON    METAPHYSICS. 


105 


the  knowing  mind.  The  colour  of  an  object  is  not  transplanted 
from  matter  into  mind  in  any  degree — colour  cannot  be  at  all 
a  quality  of  our  thought:  the  length  of  it  only  partially — it 
is  so  much  distance,  and  our  will  may  have  for  an  attribute  of 
it  quantity  of  exertion  corresponding  to  this  distance :  but  the 
meaning,  reason,  purpose,  of  it,  that  is,  the  expression  of  the  re- 
lation of  the  parts  of  it  to  each  other,  which  gives  it  unity, 
thinghood,  reality,  may  be  transferred  to  the  mind  altogether 
— it  may  be  with  equal  propriety  described  as  a  thought  and  as 
the  thing,  as  something  in  our  mind  or  something  in  the  object. 

I  do  not  think  that  the  metaphor  or  manner  of  speaking 
conveyed  in  the  word  *  transference '  and  in  such  expressions  as 
'  in  *  the  mind  can  really  here  cause  any  deception.  Of  course 
I  am  not  speaking  of  any  movement  or  any  locality,  and  the 
reference  to  such  which  the  words  convey  (and  it  is  impossible 
to  find  words  un-extravagating  in  this  respect)  does  not  enter 
into  the  thought  or  argument. 

I  have  not  lately  been  making  much  reference  to  Sir  William 
Hamilton,  and  will  now  for  a  short  time  leave  him  entirely,  in 
order  to  discuss  some  points  connected  with  what  I  will  call  the 
scale  of  sensation  or  knowledge. 


^ 


H 


iVi 


CHAP.  VI.]    THE  SCALE  OF  SENSATION,  &C. 


107 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE  SCALE  OF  SENSATION  OR  KNOWLEDGK 

I  DO  not  know  that  there  is  any  harm  in  saying  that  we 
have  sensations,  or  the  sensation,  of  time,  space,  solidity,  and 
even  of  unity  or  genericity.  After  all,  sensation  is  the  general 
term  to  express  the  consciousness,  feeling,  thought  which  we 
have  correspondent  with  (so  far  as  we  assume  the  existence  of  the 
external  world,  but),  more  correctly,  supposed  by  us  correspond- 
ent with,  the  presence  of  any  portion  of  existence  independent 

^  of  us.  We  may  conveniently  imagine  two  kinds  of  this  sensa- 
tion, in  no  degree  rigidly  separable  the  one  from  the  other,  viz. 
feeling  and  thought:  feeling j  that  kind  of  it  in  which  self- 
consciousness,  reflexive  attention,  pleasure  or  pain,  is  strongly 
present:  thought,  that  in  which  the  attention  is  directed  rather 
to  the  non-ego  and  to  the  exertion  of  the  will.  The  former  is 
clearly  that  in  which  there  is  the  least  approximation  to  each 

\  other,  in  the  qualities  of  the  feeling  and  those  of  the  matter. 
To  this  extent  there  was  reason  in  the  language  of  many  philo- 
sophers, that  the  ideas,  as  they  called  them  of  secondary 
(chemical)  qualities  were  unlike  the  qualities.  A  feeling  em- 
bodying pleasure  or  pain  must  be  most  thoroughly  incommen- 
surable and  out  of  relation  with  any  quality  which  can  be  sup- 
posed in  unliving  matter.  As  at  the  extremity  on  the  side  of 
feeling  the  incommensurability  is  complete,  so  at  the  extremity 
on  the  side  of  thought,  or  the  sensation  of  unity,  thinghood 
(so  for  the  present  to  call  it),  the  meeting  is  complete :  this 
we  have  seen.  Half-way  along  the  line  stand  the  relations  of 
space. 

'^  At  one  end  then  of  this  line  the  mind  has  feelings,  the 
matter  qualities,  contemporaneous,  but  not  mutually  compar- 


able: at  the  other  the  mind  has  thoughts,  and  the  matter 
something  in  it  which  we  may  call  (for  the  present)  thoughts 
embodied:  near  this  extremity  must  be  relations  of  time  and 
l^alf-way  those  of  space. 

At  every  step  of  what  we  call  perception,  i.  e.  the  advance  of 
our  experience  or  conception  of  the  external  world,  sensations 
of  all  these  kinds  are  blended  together.  It  is  obvious  that 
sensations  belonging  to  the  feeling  end  would  be  of  themselves, 
for  intellectual  result,  mere  confusion.  What  makes  this  con- 
fusion orderly  is  in  a  less  degree  sensation  belonging  to  the 
middle  of  the  scale,  in  which  there  is  measurement ;  and  in  a 
higher,  the  highest  degree,  sensations  belonging  to  the  other 
end,  to  which  belong  special  distinction,  arrangement,  classifi- 
cation. ^ 

I  carefully  guarded  the  word  '  transference '  where  I  used  it 
before,  but  I  will  now  resume  it  with  a  little  less  care.  We 
will  speak  of  mind  and  matter  as  if  they  were  things  between 
which  there  could  take  place  something  like  movement. 

In  what  I  have  called  feeling  the  mind  is  passive,  and  since 
it  is  supposed  there  must  be  activity  somewhere,  the  matter  is 
considered  active,  and  the  mind  or  subject  of  the  feeling  is 
spoken  of  as  'affected'  or  in  some  similar  way.  In  reality 
there  is  no  importance  in  this,  for  in  respect  of  the  sensation,  there 
is  no  more  activity  of  the  matter  than  of  the  mind.  Under 
certain  circumstances  of  the  one,  there  is  feeling  of  the  other : 
activity  must  have  been  required  for  the  putting  the  former  in 
these  circumstances,  and  that  is  all. 

The  passivity  of  the  mind  is  tolerably  readily  comprehen- 
sible, but  what  is  the  meaning  of  its  activity?  and  as  it  is  all 
passive  at  the  feeling  end  of  the  scale,  is  it  all  active  at  the 
thought  end?     And  what  is  it  half-way? 

There  being  at  this  latter  end,  on  the  one  side,  thought  in 
the  mind,  on  the  other,  thought  embodied  in  the  matter,  is  the 
relation  of  these  two  thoughts  one  of  coincidence,  or  of  identity? 
In  other  words.  Is  the  thought  which  meets  us  in  the  matter 
thought  which  we  have  first  put  there?  Here  the  mind  would 
be  active. 

Again,  half-way,  the  qualities  of  space  and  those  of  the 
mind  being  capable  of  being  brought  into  some  relation,  has 


(^ 


I 


t 

I 


108 


THE    SCALE   OF   SENSATION 


[chap. 


this  which  is  common  to  the  two,  its  source  in  the  mind,  or 
from  the  other  side?  Is  the  mind  here  active  or  not? 
^  The  describing  space  as  a  form  of  thought,  or  as  a  form 
given  by  thought  to  sensation,  seems  to  me  a  manner  of  speak- 
ing in  some  respects  exactly  analogous,  from  the  opposite 
point  of  view,  to  the  manner  of  speaking  about  primary  quali- 
ties of  Locke  and  other  philosophers,  which  I  before  commented 
on  (namely,  that  the  ideas  of  them  were  like  their  prototypes) ; 
to  be  in  the  same  manner  itself  an  error,  but  to  be  representa- 
V  tive  of  the  same  truth  which  that  represented. 

To  say  *  we  think  spatially ',  which  is  the  kind  of  language 
we  ought  to  use  on  the  supposition  of  space  being  a  form  of 
thought,  seems  to  me  language  in  some  respects  of  (exactly)  the 
same  kind  as  the  supposition  of  a  square  idea.  The  way  we 
think  spatially,  so  far  as  we  do  so,  is  to  will  a  certain  amount 
of  exertion,  which  exertion  we  understand  as  carrying  our  hand 
(say)  through  a  certain  amount  of  what  then  we  call  *  space*. 

I  have  before  said,  that  if  we  liked  to  use  language  in  that 
manner,  all  that  we  ultimately  or  immediately  are  certain  of  is 
that  we  think  or  feel  in  such  and  such  a  manner.  There  is 
therefore  certainly  no  harm  in  the  description  of  our  having  the 
sensation  of  space  (so  I  have  expressed  it)  as  '  thinking  spati- 
f  ally '.  But  the  point  is.  Is  there  more  reason,  in  the  above  case, 
for  using  the  language  '  think  spatially '  than  there  is  for  de- 
scribing our  sensation  of  a  red  colour  as  'thinking  redly'?  In 
other  words,  is  space  more  a  form  of  thought  as  distinguished 
from  a  quality  or  relation  of  body  or  matter,  more  subjective,  as 
some  would  describe  it,  than  colour  is  ? 

I  do  not  think  we  can  understand  the  manner  in  which  it  is 
so  without  here  making  a  most  careful  distinction. 

When  I  said  just  above,  "may  we  speak  with  more  reason 
"of  'thinking  spatially*  than  of  'thinking  redly*?"  I  follow  the 
same  line  of  thought  as  Berkeley,  when  he  considers.  Is  there 
any  difference  in  the  manner  of  our  perception  of  primary  and 
secondary  qualities,  giving  everything  of  a  higher  or  more,  im- 
portant character  to  the  perception  of  the  former  ?  He  decides 
that  there  is  not 

But  the  prerogative  of  the  primary  qualities  above  the  se- 
condary, against  which  he  argues,  viz.  that  the  ideas  of  them 


VI.] 


OR   KNOWLEDGE. 


109 


are  like  their  prototypes,  whereas  those  of  the  others  are  not, 
is,  in  one  view,  exactly  the  opposite  of  the  prerogative  which  is 
claimed  for  them  when  space  is  described  as  a  form  of  thought, 
so  that  we  might  use  the  language  'think  spatially',  whereas  we 
could  not  say  reasonably,  '  think  redly '.  If,  in  the  case  of  pri- 
mary qualities,  the  idea  was  like  the  quality,  whereas  in  the 
other  it  was  only  correspondent  or  contemporaneous,  it  was 
clear  that  the  object  in  the  former  case  came  into  the  mind  in 
a  manner  which  it  did  not  do  in  the  latter,  or  that  the  percep- 
tion in  the  case  of  the  primary  qualities  was  objective,  and  that 
of  the  others  subjective,  possibly  therefore  illusion.  And  it  was 
on  this  supposed  subjectivity  of  the  perception  of  secondary 
qualities,  and  the  disproof  of  any  prerogative  of  primary  per- 
ception above  them,  that  Berkeley  built  what  we  know  as  his 
doctrine. 

If  we  describe  space  as  a  form  of  thought,  in  contrast  with 
secondary  qualities  as  qualities  or  relations  of  matter,  we  of 
course  do  exactly  the  opposite  to  this,  and  make  the  primary 
perception  the  subjective,  the  other  the  objective.  This  is  what 
I  referred  to  in  saying,  that  the  Kantian  language  had  an  ana- 
logy with  that  of  Locke,  from  an  opposite  point  of  view. 

Now  what  we  must  keep  in  mind  about  all  this  is,  that  our  i 
thought  must  start  from  the  phenomenalist  or  the  philosophical 
assumption,  and  that  whereas  in  the  former  objectivity  is  the 
test  of  truth,  in  the  latter  subjectivity  is.  On  the  philosophical 
or  epistemological  assumption,  knowledge  is  not  the  bringing  of 
one  thing  which  is,  into  the  relation  which  we  call  knowledge 
with  another  thing  which  is :  such  a  description  would  be  ab- 
surd, involving  in  the  description  the  thing  which  we  are  de- 
scribing (we  cannot  describe  the  things  without  supposing  them 
known) :  knowledge  is  the  view  as  orderly,  formed,  having  reason  j 
and  meaning,  character  and  qualities,  in  it,  of  that  which,  but  for 
the  knowledge,  would  have  to  be  viewed  (if  it  could  be  viewed) 
as  confused,  inform,  characterless,  undistinguished.  On  the  phe- 
nomenalist assumption,  on  the  other  hand,  we  begin  with  sup- 
posed existence  independent  of  us,  of  which  we  are  a  part  or  with 
which  we  coexist,  and  taking  for  granted  what  knowledge  is 
(which  cannot  be  investigated  on  this  view),  we  investigate  the 
particular  ways  in  which  we  come  to  the  knowledge  of  the  par- 


'I 


<  *-^  ■'- 


110 


THE   SCALE    OF    SENSATION 


[chap. 


ticulars  of  this  existence.  On  this  view  what  we  see  first  is 
things,  then  we  see  them  of  such  and  such  a  shape  and  size,  then 
of  such  and  such  a  shape,  size,  and  colour :  by  which  of  course  I 
do  not  mean  that  this  is  the  historical  order  of  perception,  but 
I  mean  that  if  we  take  up  a  book  of  this  kind,  we  see  first 
things  talked  about  as  what  are  supposed  (or  very  often,  with 
much  confusion  of  thought,  objects) — these  things  are  supposed 
from  the  first  to  have  various  powers  to  do  this  and  that,  and 
the  course  of  the  investigation  is  to  make  out  how  the  shape, 
size,  &c.,  which  is  assumed  as  belonging  to  them  comes  to  be 
known  by  us,  and  then  how  the  colour,  taste,  &c.,  similarly 
assumed,  does  so:  and  the  old  doctrine  as  to  primary  and 
secondary  qualities  was  to  the  effect  that  the  shape,  size,  &c., 
really  belong  to  them,  as  a  part  of  the  thing,  but  that  the 
colour,  taste,  &c.,  are  something,  as  compared  with  those,  super- 
added, and  which  the  thing  might  be  without — and  are  more- 
over known  to  us  much  less  perfectly  than  the  others,  we  only 
knowing,  as  to  them,  that  we  have  certain  feelings  to  which 
there  must  be  something,  though  we  know  not  what,  corre- 
spondent. 

Now,  exactly  to  the  degree  to  which  anything  (the  reader 
will  not  be  deceived  by  the  necessary  word  'thing')  on  this 
assumption,  is  a  more  necessary  quality  of  external  or  objective 
reality,  so  on  the  other  or  philosophical  assumption,  is  it  more 
suhjective,  or  in  a  higher  degree  a  form  of  thought. 

The  order  of  consideration  on  the  philosophical  assumption  is 
exactly  the  reverse  of  that  on  the  phenomenalist,  which  I  have 
described.  On  the  philosophical  assumption  the  confused  mass  of 
chemical  or  secondary  sensation  gives  the  confused  and  chaotic 
matter  of  (in  this  sense),  or  preparation  for,  what  is  afterwards 
knowledge.  To  this  time  and  space  (which  viewed  from  within,  are 
in  fact  a  higher  degi'ee  of  self-consciousness  and  so  much  volitional 
exertion)  give  form  and  order  of  the  first  or  lower  description, 
in  the  sense  of  shape,  magnitude,  relative  position,  &c.  Then 
finally  form  of  the  higher  description,  elSo?,  quality  or  qualitied- 
nMS,  kind,  true  reality,  is  given  by  a  higher  self- consciousness, 
and  there  begin  to  be  things.  The  things  are  specially  things, 
they  are  noticed  and  distinguished  as  unities  out  of  the  confused 
mass  of  sensation  of  which  they  are  a  part,  in  virtue  of  various 


VI.] 


OR   KNOWLEDGE. 


Ill 


suppositions,  most  thoroughly  subjective  or  matters  of  thought, 
about  them :  that  they  are  like  ourselves :  that  they  are  a  con- 
trast to  ourselves ;  that  they  are  what  we  can  handle  or  use : 
that  they  are  like  what  we  can  construct:  that  they  are  what 
hurt  us :  and  a  variety  of  other  suppositions  of  like  kind.  They 
are  made  things  to  a  certain  degree  by  the  lower  description  of 
form  or  by  relations  of  space :  but  it  is  evident  things  mean  to 
us  much  more  than  solid  shapes,  of  one  and  another  colour,  &c., 
and  if  this  was  all  the  character  which  they  possessed,  we 
should  very  slightly  notice  and  distinguish  them,  even  if  we 
did  so  at  all. 

Of  course  this  is  not  meant  as  a  historical  order  of  percep- 
tion, any  more  than  the  order  which  I  gave  as  to  phenome- 
nalism. 

Of  the  actual  or  historical  course,  of  such  perception,  I  shall 
speak  in  a  moment. 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  discussion  whether  space,  e.  g.  is  a 
form  of  thought  {%.  e.  a  form  given  by  thought  to  our  sensation, 
experience,  or  lower  intuition)  or  a  relation  (circumstance, 
quality)  of  matter  is  one  which  I  do  not  regard  as  important, 
or,  more  strictly,  I  think  the  supposition  that  it»must  be  one  or 
the  other  unphilosophical.  As  that  discussion  is  sometimes 
conducted,  people  seem  to  think  that  the  supposition  is,  that 
there  are  things  with  their  secondary  qualities  on  one,  the 
objective  side,  and  we,  out  of  various  possible  forms  which 
thought  might  have,  have  for  our  form  of  it  the  supposing  these 
existing  in  what  we  then  call  space.  So  far  as  space  is  a  form 
of  thought  and  not  a  relation  of  matter,  it  is  when  the  subject 
of  our  investigation  is  not  what  matter  is,  but  how  we  think 
about  what  we  call  so. 

Space  is  very  fitly  described  as  giving  form  to  that  which  is 
commonly  described  as  sensation,  that  is,  to  the  confused  semi- 
perception  which  belongs  to  what  I  have  called  the  *  feeling' 
end  of  the  scale.  Any  dwelling  upon  this  would  come  more 
fitly  in  speaking  of  Dr  Whewell's  books:  but  I  will  say  now 
thus  much,  that  so  far  as  relations  of  space  are  considered  to 
give  form  to  that  sort  of  sensation,  they  want  higher  relations 
still,  those  which  I  have  described  as  of  unity  or  reality,  to  give 
what  is  more  properly  called  'form*  to  them.     Relations  of 


V 


X 


112 


THE   SCALE   OF   SENSATION 


[chap. 


space,  in  consequence  of  their  being,  as  I  may  say,  perceived 
by  measurement,  or  measured  in  the  perceiving,  have  a  cha- 
racter of  exactitude  about  them  which  has  caused  great  atten- 
tion to  be  given  to  them  as  exhibitions  of  accurate  truth,  in  a 
way  in  which  nothing  else  is.  All  this  may  be  made  to  mean 
too  much,  or  may  have  more  philosophical  importance  given  to 
it  than  it  should  have.  From  the  time  of  Plato  downward, 
more  strongly  however  in  followers  of  his  than  in  himself,  this 
has  been  so.  But  mathematics,  though  giving  exact  truth,  give 
truth  only  of  a  very  poor  sort :  and  what  is  more,  they  require, 
even  for  this,  to  be  informed  (or  to  have  form  given  to  them) 
themselves  by  higher  considerations  than  those  of  space,  time, 
and  number.  As  I  have  said,  it  is  not  the  shape  (or  size,  or 
position)  of  a  thing  which  to  us,  except  in  a  very  limited  de- 
gree, constitutes  it  a  thing,  but  it  is  what  Aristotle  called  the 
\0709  of  it,  that  in  it  which  Plato  conceived  to  correspond  to 
the  idea,  that  which  I  have  variously  called  (for  indeed  one 
can  give  it  no  one  name)  the  meaning,  purpose,  &c.,  the  reason, 
in  a  manner,  embodied  in  it  which  is  a  kind  of  principle  or  soul 
to  the  arrangement  of  it.  This  is  what,  in  order  to  have  a 
fixed  point  round  which  growing  knowledge  may  group  itself, 
we  suppose,  and  mark  by  the  name,  and  take  for  the  logical 
subject  of  the  adjective  things  or  predicates  which  one  after 
another  we  go  on  learning  about  the  substantive  thing  or  ori- 
ginally noticed  and  distinguished  unity.  This  first  principle 
of  notice  so  to  call  it  may  be  a  mere  supposition,  may  turn  out 
to  have  been  a  mistake — this  is  not  of  consequence  to  the  after 
knowledge :  for  every  real  step  of  knowledge,  as  I  have  before 
,  remarked,  is  as  well  a  correction  of  error  as,  if  we  like  so  to 
view  it,  an  addition  to  an  aggregate.  The  important  point  is 
this — that  the  thing,  unless  it  is  a  mere  mathematical  repre- 
sentation, is  a  thing  or  object  of  our  thought  in  virtue  of  some- 
thing (supposedly)  in  it  or  about  it  more  important  and  of  a 
higher  reality  than  its  shape  or  size,  which,  in  comparison 
with  this,  are  only  accessory  features. 

It  is  the  same  in  regard  of  number.  The  great  importance 
of  this  at  all  times  in  philosophy  has  been  assumed  (and  honour 
has  thence  accrued  to  mathematics)  to  arise  from  the  exactitude 
of  which  the  calculations  which  it  deals  with  are  susceptible. 


ii 


VI.] 


OR   KNOWLEDGE. 


113 


But  this  is  quite  a  subordinate  reason  of  its  importance,  the 
great  reason  of  which  is  in  the  conception  of  a  unit  which  such 
calculations  suppose.  Such  unit  is  really  a  logical  individual, 
a  conception  most  complicated :  that  is,  not  merely  an  object 
singular  (what  in  common  language  we  loosely  style  an  indi- 
vidual) which  is  all  that  relations  of  space  can  separate  and 
distinguish  for  us,  but  an  object  of  a  sort  or  kind,  involving 
therefore  the  idea  of  such  sort  or  kind,  or  of  order  and  arrange- 
ment, that  is,  invested,  embodied,  mind,  in  the  universe.  Num- 
ber, setting  apart  the  pleasure  of  calculation,  has  no  importance 
except  as  it  is  number  of  things,  the  bringing  of  which  together 
implies,  so  far,  generic  identity. 

What  I  have  last  said  explains,  sufficiently  for  the  present, 
the  thought  which  I  have  supposed  to  stand  at  the  opposite  end 
of  the  scale  from  sensation  as  mere  feeling. 

Historically,  in  every  act  at  all  important  of  perception, 
sensation  enters  of  every,  kind,  all  along  the  scale.  It  may  be 
said  in  this  respect  that  all  the  operations  of  our  mind  are 
homogeneous,  or  that  into  all  perception,  or  intelligence,  what 
,we  commonly  describe  as  the  later  mental  operations  really 
enter.  In  the  same  manner  also  all  perception  or  intelligence 
is  acquired  or  composed — an  aggregate,  cemented  by  past  expe- 
rience. 

If  we  analyze  the  operations  of  the  mind,  or  which  is  the 
same  thing,  analyze  itself  as  we  know  it,  assigning  to  it  various 
faculties,  what  I  have  called  sensation  will  probably  be  divided 
among  several  of  these.  The  thought  at  the  head  of  my  scale, 
the  measurement  at  the  centre,  and  the  feeling  at  the  bottom, 
have  from  very  early  times  been  allotted  to  three  separate  facul- 
ties, called  once  1/01)9,  BidvoLa,  aLa-Oijac;,  and  this  sort  of  triple 
division,  under  various  names,  has  been  frequently  recognized. 

The  course  of  the  school  often  called  Sensationalist  or  that 
of  Experience  (now  perhaps  the  Inductive  School)  has  gene- 
rally been  to  blend  together  the  central  and  lower  part  of  the 
scale,  as  involving  no  important  difference,  and  to  leave  out  of 
account,  as  more  or  less  visionary  or  fictitious,  the  upper  part 
(that  of  thought),  thus  making  the  whole  homogeneous. 

The  question  whether  relations  of  space  {e.g.)  are  modes  of 
thought  or  of  objective  reality,  is  as  I  have  said,  at  least  unim- 

8 


114 


THE    SCALE    OF    SENSATION 


[chap. 


portant,  perhaps  wrong  in  the  conception:  but  it  is  otherwise 
with  the  question  whether  they  are  of  the  same  nature  as  the 
secondary  qualities,  or  those  of  mere  feeling. 

Locke  as  I  have  said,  and  I  suppose  Kant,  maintain  the 
difference  from  opposite  sides,  the  former  (following  the  old 
philosophy)  making  the  primary  qualities  more  objective  or 
more  intimate  to  matter  than  the  others,  and  therefore  in  his 
view  more  real,  the  latter  making  them  more  subjective  or 
more  a  part  of  thought  than  the  other,  and  therefore  more  real 
than  they,  so  far  as  his  view  is  to  be  considered  the  philoso- 
phical, less  real  so  far  as  it  is  to  be  considered  the  phenomenal. 
On  this  I  say  nothing.  It  seems  to  me  that  the  general  effect 
of  Kantism  in  England,  owing  perhaps  to  a  phenomenalist  appli- 
cation of  it  belonging  to  our  habit  of  mind,  has  rather  been  to 
puzzle  philosophy  and  to  strengthen  what  seems  to  me  scepti- 
cism, and  that  when  applied  in  the  other  direction,  it  has  had, 
as  perhaps  with  Kant  himself,  too  much  of  a  merely  mathema- 
tical (or  drily  logical)  character.  We  in  England  use  the  word 
subjective  often  as  almost  synonymous  with  visionary :  and  the 
saying  that  space,  upon  the  reality  of  which  depends  whether . 
or  not  the  external  world  (or  what  we  think  so)  is  an  illusion, 
is  subjective,  would  be  taken  as  the  saying,  with  a  different  phi- 
losophical reason,  much  the  same  as  Berkeley  did.  And  so  for 
much  of  Kantism  besides. 

What  I  have  said  hitherto  about  mind  and  matter  has  been 
very  general — I  will  now  speak  of  them  a  little  more  with 
reference  to  the  particular  circumstances  of  our  perception. 

I  use  the  word  '  perception'  for  the  gaining  of  fresh  know- 
ledge in  what  I  have  previously  called  the  way  of  acquaintance 
with  things,  kenntniss.  'Sensation'  I  rarely  or  never  use, 
though  I  use  it  constantly,  without  describing  what,  in  the 
particular  application,  I  mean  by  it. 

At  the  lower  or  feeling  end  of  the  scale  of  sensation  which 
I  gave  a  short  time  since  the  two  things  which  stand  opposite  to 
each  other  are  not  properly  feeling  and  matter  (sensation  and 
body),  but  are  sensation  or  feeling  on  the  one  side,  and  on  the 
other  side  a  communication  between  two  kinds  of  matter,  that 
of  our  body  and  that  which  is  external  to  it.  It  is  possible,  as  I 
have  said,  that  here  there  may  be  a  mechanical  measurement 


VI.] 


OR   KNOWLEDGE. 


115 


and  corresponding  to  it  a  latent,  because  infinitesimally  minute, 
consciousness:  e.g.  that  the  real  character  of  taste  might  be  an 
action  and  reaction  (the  force  on  the  one  side  being  our  will) 
between  the  separate  portions  of  our  organ  of  taste  and  the 
particles  and  minute  forces  of  the  thing  tasted.  But  this, 
though  we  might  possibly  follow  it  out  on  the  side  of  physiology, 
we  could  never  possibly  follow  out  on  the  side  of  feeling,  having 
no  microscope  for  consciousness.  We  can  only  say  then,  that 
the  communication  between  the  tasted  substance  and  the  palate 
is  accompanied  by  what  we  call  a  feeling  (the  sensation  of 
taste)  entirely,  as  feeling,  out  of  relation  with  the  communi- 
cation. And  the  contact  or  contemporaneousness  is  not  be- 
tween feeling  and  matter,  but  between  feeling  and  the  mutual 
communication  of  two  kinds  of  matter. 

At  the  middle  of  the  scale,  to  which  correspond  relations  of 
space,  the  case  is  not  exactly  similar.  Here  the  sensation  or 
feeling  (not  like  the  last)  does  enter  in  some  degree,  though 
not  in  a  great  degree,  into  a  relation  which  we  can  under- 
stand with  the  supposed  matter  without.  It  is  still  the  phe- 
nomenal fact,  that  matter  on  the  one  side  (in  our  bodies)  com- 
municates with,  on  the  other  side,  space,  or  what  is  traversed, 
and  external  matter,  or  what  resists  or  is  resisted:  but  the 
feeling  on  our  part  which  accompanies  this  communication,  is 
one  which,  starting  from  the  phenomenalist  side,  we  can  to  a 
certain  degree  take  account  and  speak  of:  it  is  not  entirely 
out  of  relation  with  the  qualities  of  matter:  it  is  what  we 
understand  as  not  simply  a<JCompanying,  but  more  or  less  giv- 
ing the  reason  for,  the  communication.  When  we  say  that 
it  is  an  effort  or  force  of  will  that  moves  the  arm,  of  course 
we  do  not  mean  more  than  to  a  certain  degree  to  compare 
what  takes  place  in  the  world  of  feeling  with  the  phenomenal 
forces  in  the  world  without:  but  to  that  degree  we  do  mean  to 
compare  them :  between  the  one  and  the  other  there  is  some 
relation  which  we  can  understand:  they  are  mutually  commen- 
surable or  the  one  is  understood  as  measuring  the  other :  the 
will-force  has  in  this  respect  not  that  entire  subjectivity  which 
belongs  to  feelings  of  pleasure  and  pain  (which,  as  I  have  said, 
might  be  entirely  different  in  different  people,  and  the  thing, 
of  itself,  never  come  to  be  known),  in  so  far  as,  having  an  imme- 

8—2 


,.,aijiaa^»k 


116 


THK  SCALE   OF   SENSATION 


[chap. 


diate  measure  in  the  world  without,  we  are  able  in  some  degi^ee 
from  this  direction  to  judge  of  it.  At  this  part  of  the  scale 
then,  though  still  feeling  and  matter  belong  to  two  worlds,  and 
we  must  say  that  what  is  on  the  one  side  is  feeling,  and  what 
is  on  the  other  side  is  the  communication  between  two  sorts  of 
matter,  yet  the  feeling  is  associated  with  one  of  the  sorts  of 
matter  in  a  way  which  we  can  more  or  less  understand :  it  acts 
upon  it,  and  that  means  something  though  it  may  not  mean 
much:  feeling  is  here  in  relation  not  merely  with  a  relation 
between  two  kinds  of  matter,  but  with  matter  itself. 

At  the  upper  end  of  the  scale,  that  of  thought,  the  case  is 
exactly  the  opposite  of  what  it  was  in  the  lower.  As  there  there 
was  communication  between  two  kinds  of  matter,  and  over 
against  these  a  corresponding  feeling  or  mode  of  mind,  so  here 
there  is  communication  between  two  different  forms  or  modes 
of  mind,  and  matter,  phenomenalism,  appears  distinct  from  them, 
as  simply  what  has  brought  about  the  communication.  The 
perception,  in  its  completeness,  of  an  existing  object  of  know- 
ledge, is  really  a  sympathy  with  its  constitution,  arising  from 
the  fact  that  we  know  ourselves  more  or  less  as  constituted 
beings,  and  that  we  can  make  or  constitute  things  ourselves  for 
purposes  for  which  we  need  them.  We  recognize  therefore  in 
the  objects  mind  kindred  to  our  own.  The  feeling  and  mea- 
surement which  build  up  the  knowledge  thus  completed,  and 
through  which  this  final  (far  indeed  from  final  in  point  of  time, 
for  it  is  the  spring  of  the  others)  perception  strikes  the  life  of 
unity,  are  the  crude  material  of  the  knowledge  on  our  side,  just 
as  the  qualities  of  matter  are  on  the  other  side  the  material  in 
which  the  mind  which  we  recognize  has  been  invested,  em- 
bodied, immateriated.  ^ 

It  is  in  consequence  of  the  complication  of  all  this  which  I 
have  endeavoured  to  exhibit,  that  the  words  '  presence  *,  *  pre- 
sentation *,  &c.,  and  the  words  '  inward ',  *  internal ',  have  rarely 
been  used  in  reference  to  these  subjects  without  confusion. 

If  we  mean  by  '  presence  *  a  sort  of  abstract  contact,  which 
phenomenally  or  concretely,  is  only  contemporaneousness,  then 
what  is  *  present  *  to  the  feeling  (obscure,  not  known)  is,  at  the 
lower  end  of  the  scale  of  sensation  the  communication  between 
the  two  sorts  of  matter:  in  the  middle,  either  (or  both)  that, 


VI.] 


OR   KNOWLEDGE. 


117 


or  (and)  matter  itself:  at  the  upper  end  the  mind  embodied  in 
the  matter. 

If  we  mean  by  'presence*  local  presence,  then  by  'ourselves' 
(the  one  side)  we  must  understand  our  corporeal  selves,  i.e. 
the  organized  matter  of  our  bodies,  to  which  our  mental  selves, 
our  feeling,  is,  in  whatever  way,  related. 

With  the  confusion  of  these  two  notions,  that  is,  with  the 
failure  to  keep  in  mind  whether  our  assumption  is  the  pheno- 
menalist  or  the  logical,  and  with  the  taking  the  sense  of  sight 
for  the  typical  sense,  there  arises  an  entanglement  almost  inex- 
tricable. 

A  thing  cannot  act  where  it  is  not.  This,  as  to  pheno- 
menalist  things  and  forces  (or,  if  any  prefer  the  expression,  when^ 
spoken  concretely  and  without  metaphor)  is  true.  Hence  an 
object  (e.g.  a  tree)  affecting  the  eye,  must  in  some  way  be  pre- 
sent at  the  eye :  and  even,  affecting  the  mind,  must  in  some 
way  be  present  there  (somewhere,  as  those  who  speak  thus  have 
usually  supposed,  within  the  body)  too.  All  this  is  only  car- 
rying out  the  language.  Hence  the  endless  theories  about 
'  images '  of  things,  and  hence  too  the  discussions  and  rediscus- 
sions,  whether  or  not  Dr  Reid's  adversaries  meant  by  '  ideas', 
images,  whether  or  not  he  meant  that  they  meant  images, 
whether  if  he  did  mean  that  they  meant  it,  he  really  refrited 
them — and  much  more.  The  disentanglement  of  this  may  be 
left  to  those  who  have  Sir  William  Hamilton's  interest  in  clear- 
ing up  points  like  these. 

Perhaps  the  thing  will  appear  most  clear  if,  looking  back 
to  the  sentence  in  the  last  paragraph  which  refers  to  an  object 
affecting  the  eye,  I  try  to  point  out  to  the  reader  which  por- 
tions belong  to  the  logical,  which  to  the  phenomenalist  view. 
'Object'  (in  other  words  the  saying  that  it  is  the  tree  that  we  see, 
the  tree  which  out  of  the  whole  field  of  view  is  in  relation 
with  us)  and  then  afterwards,  '  affecting  the  mind,*  *  being  pre- 
sent at  the  mind,*  are  logical  or  philosophical:  'affecting  the 
eye,*  '  being  present  at  the  eye,*  are  phenomenalist. 

Logically,  the  object,  or  the  tree  as  such,  may  be  said  to 
affect  the  mind  and  to  be  present  at  it,  so  far  as  that  is  a  good 
description  of  what  really  takes  place,  viz.  that  we  have  a  feel- 
ing in  our  mind  that  there  exists  in  that  relation  to  us  which 


i*si 


i' 


118 


THE   SCALE   OF    SENSATION 


[chap. 


we  call  sight,  one  particular  object  of  knowledge  out  of  a  spatial 
universe,  which  object  we  call  a  tree,  and  understand  to  be 
such  in  virtue  of  certain  qualities,  forming  together  a  whole  or 
unity,  which  we  suppose  it  to  possess,  vegetable  life,  greenness, 

&c.  &c. 

Phenomenally,  what  the  eye  is  affected  by  is  light,  one  cir- 
cumstance of  the  light  which  so  affects  it  being  that  it  is  in- 
terrupted, or  reflected,  or  modified  in  whatever  way  by  the 
portion  of  matter  which,  when  the  perception  is  completed,  we 
call  the  tree.  The  saying  then  that  the  tree  affects  the  eye, 
though  there  is  no  harm  in  it,  is  insignificant,  and  carries  no 
conclusion  of  the  kind  above.  But  the  speaking  of  any  one 
thing  affecting  the  eye  is  dangerous.  The  whole  is  a  process 
highly  complicated,  one  part  of  which  is  various  change  (of 
position  &c.)  in  what  we  call  the  eye. 

It  would  take  me  too  long  to  go  further  into  this  confusion, 
illustrations  of  which  will  recur. 

It  is  not  so  easy  to  discover  how  far  there  is  or  is  not  con- 
fusion in  the  use  by  philosophers  of  the  terms  '  presentation ' 
and  'representation*,  or  e.g.  'presentative  and  representative  con- 
sciousness'. *  Presentative  consciousness '  should  mean  the  feel- 
ing (which  we  regularly  and  naturally  have)  of  our  phenomenal 
existence,  and  in  conjunction  with  this  the  feeling  also,  to 
which  latter  it  is  that  the  attention  is  directed,  that  there 
exists  in  actual  communication  with  us  through  the  bodily 
senses  an  object,  which  in  this  character  we  fix  and  name,  in- 
dependent of  us.  (In  this  view  of  presentativeness  there  is  no 
room  for  discussion  whether  the  knowledge  is  or  is  not  imme- 
diate. The  speaking  of  it  as  '  immediate '  would  have  no  dis- 
tinctive significance.)  In  contrast  with  this  stands  consciousness 
representative:  which  is  the  feeling,  first  as  before  of  our  phe- 
nomenal existence,  and  then  (with  attention  given  to  it)  of 
there  being  in  our  thought  something  which  might  be  in  com- 
munication with  us  by  the  bodily  senses,  but  which,  so  far  as 
the  representation  goes,  is  not.  I  say,  '  so  far  as  the  represen- 
tation goes*,  because  the  feelings  of  presentation  and  repre- 
sentation may  be,  without  special  attention,  undistinguishable, 
or  may  be  concurrent.  Philosophers  generally  have  considered 
that  the  only  way  in  which  we  can  consider  that  a  thing  might 


VI.] 


OR   KNOWLEDGE. 


119 


he  in  communication  with  our  bodily  senses  is  from  the  know- 
ledge that  every  separate  portion  of  it  has  been.  In  this  respect 
representation  miist  involve  memory,  and  may  involve  besides 
>vrhat  we  may  call  an  active  power  in  the  mind  of  recomposing. 

How  do  presentation  and  representation  thus  viewed,  stand 
related  to  the  notions  of  mediacy  and  immediacy  of  knowledge? 
In  this  way:  Representation,  in  the  notion  of  it,  might  be 
described  as  bi-ohjectal  knowledge,  that  is,  knowledge  in  the  case 
of  which  we  might  use  the  word  object  in  either  of  two  senses, 
either  to  express  what  is  thought,  or  (in  common  language) 
what  is  thought  of:  there  is  supposed  something  (for  the  mo- 
ment we  will  say)  in  the  mind,  and  something  also,  possibly 
but  not  necessarily  existent,  out  of  the  mind,  which  that  in  it 
represents.  We  know  then  the  thing  out  of  the  mind  by  vir- 
tue of  (through  the  medium  of)  that  in  it. 

It  is  important  to  observe  that  the  notion  'mediate*  or  'im- 
mediate* is  really  wider  than  that  of  'representative*  or  'presen- 
tative,* and  that  they  ought  not  at  all  to  be  used  as  equivalent. 
Bi-objectalism  is  only  one  form  of  mediateness.  What  is  really 
meant  by  knowledge  being  immediatey  when  we  are  speaking  of 
the  foundations  of  knowledge,  is  that  from  the  most  intimate  of 
it  there  is  no  break,  but  that  it  is  continuous,  in  a  manner 
homogeneous.  Thus,  if  our  most  intimate  knowledge  is  con- 
sidered to  be  of  ourselves,  we  have  not  an  immediate  knowledge 
of  an  external  or  phenomenal  world :  there  is  a  break :  and  so 
far  as  the  word  knowledge  belongs  to  the  former,  some  word 
like  'belief  belongs  to  the  latter.  This  is  in  fact  only  saying, 
that  we  have  no  means  of  demonstrating  the  latter  from  the 
former.  But  this  does  not  mean,  that  we  know  the  external  or 
phenomenal  world  by  representation:  if  the  reader  will  look  at 
the  description  given  of  representation  above,  he  will  see  that 
this  cannot  be.  The  whole  notion  of  representation  is  in  fact 
borrowed  from  the  supposition  of  an  external  world,  and  cannot 
be  applied  back  to  that.  Nay  more,  it  is  borrowed,  at  great 
danger  of  confusion,  from  one  particular  manner  of  viewing  the 
external  world,  or  the  suggestions  of  one  sense,  the  eye. 

The  difficulty  of  language  in  these  respects  may  appear 
from  the  word  '  immediate  *,  as  I  have  above  applied  it.  Con- 
tinuousness  of  knowledge  (by  which  is  meant  the  absence  of  a 


.« 


^^Oj.yjtt.lt.'  hi: 


fciLJJW 


il' 


120 


THE   SCALE   OF   SENSATION 


[chap. 


break  or  gap)  may  be  denoted  by  imraediateness  or  mediateness, 
^really  as  we  choose  to  apply  the  word  :  immediateness  may  mean 
no  chasm  between,  or  no  road  between.  I  have  made  it  mean 
the  former. 

Our  knowledge  of  the  external  world  is  not  a  knowledge 
gained  (in  the  first  instance)  or  gainable,  by  demonstration,  and 
in  this  respect,  so  far  as  it  is  a  knowledge,  it  is  immediate  :  but 
at  the  same  time  it  is  a  knowledge  separated  by  a  step  or  break, 
and  that  a  most  important  one,  from  our  knowledge  which  is 
immediate,  our  proper  consciousness,  and  in  this  respect  it  is 
mediate.  The  two  things,  the  reader  will  see,  are  the  same; 
there  is  different  use  of  the  same  word.  It  is  from  the  suppo- 
sition of  their  being  different  things  that  arises  what  is  often 
called  scepticism  :  such,  e.  g.  as  that  knowledge  which  is  medi- 
ate, and  yet  undemonstrable,  must  be  no  knowledge,  and  that 
\fiuch  is  our  knowledge  of  the  external  world. 

I  will  just  signalize  what,  in  the  endlessly  confused  contro- 
versy as  to  immediate  or  mediate  knowledge,  presentative  or 
representative  perception,  which  carries  away  in  its  torrent  alike 
clear  metaphysical  thinkers  like  Mr  Ferrier,  masters  of  philoso- 
phical history  like  Sir  William  Hamilton,  and  masters  of  phe- 
nomenal] st  logic  like  Mr  Mill  (as  we  shall  see),  seem  to  me  to 
be  the  real  points  of  importance. 

Our  knowledge  of  the  phenomenal  world  is  not,  if  we  take 
as  standard  of  immediateness  our  proper  consciousness  {%.  e.  self- 
consciousness  with  a  formless  non-ego  as  accompaniment)  imme- 
diate.    The  latter  has  the  higher  degree  of  certainty. 

We  know,  but  besides  this  we  know  that  we  know.  It  is 
not  proper  to  say  that  this  latter  statement,  as  against  the 
former,  is  the  true  one :  both  because  in  this  way,  as  Aristotle 
would  say,  the  thing  goes  on  eh  aTretpov,  and  the  same  reasons 
which  recommend  to  us  this  degree  of  abstractness  of  conscious- 
ness or  double  use  of  the  word  know,  would  seem  also  to  recom- 
mend to  us  a  higher  degree  of  it,  and  a  triple  use  of  the  word 
(we  know  that  we  know  that  we  know,  &c.) :  also  because  (as  I 
mentioned  in  speaking  of  Mr  Ferrier)  it  is  very  possible  that 
this  double  use  of  the  word  know  may  be  applied  by  us,  or  may 
tempt  us,  to  give  the  word  '  know ',  improperly,  a  double  mean- 
ing.   But  though  this  is  so,  there  is  reason  in  making  the  latter 


( 


VI.] 


OR   KNOWLEDGE. 


121 


statement  by  the  side  of  the  other,  because,  besides  knowing 
the  object  of  knowledge,  we  do  know  the  fact  or  phenomenon 
(the  first  and  greatest  of  all  phenomena)  of  knowledge,  and 
upon  this  knowledge,  in  the  higher  philosophy,  many  important 
conclusions  depend.  But  this  is  only  saying  that  the  object  of 
knowledge  may  be,  if  for  a  particular  purpose  we  choose  to 
make  it  so,  the  fact  of  knowledge  itself.  Sir  William  Hamilton 
seems  to  me  to  make  all  knowledge,  even  as  knowledge,  me- 
diate. 

We  know  the  external  world  by  our  feeling  ourselves  some- 
thing, which  I  have  called  phenomenal  beings :  the  fact  being, 
that  we  feel,  consider,  imagine  (however  we  may  describe  it) 
ourselves  in  communication,  not  merely  with  a  formless  non- 
ego,  but  with  a  regular  and  various  universe  independent  of  us, 
by  means  of  a  part  of  that  universe  which  we  call  our  bodies, 
with  which  part  also,  in  various  manners,  we  consider  our  feel- 
ing associated.  Of  some  portions  or  characters  of  this  universe 
(secondary  qualities)  our  feelings  are  only  suggestive :  some 
(primary  qualities)  they  directly  measure :  some  (the  composi- 
tion and  order  in  the  universe)  they  identify  themselves  with 
or  entirely  appropriate. 

With  what  reason  we  think  or  feel  all  this,  is  the  problem  of 
what  is  commonly  called  'Ontology'.  Upon  this  I  will  not  enter 
now,  nor  upon  the  question,  whether  there  is  reason  in  proposing 
such  a  problem. 

This  being  so,  calling  our  knowledge  of  the  particulars  of 
the  universe  '  perception  5  are  we  to  consider  it  immediate  or 
mediate,  presentation  or  representation  ? 

The  answer  to  this  really  depends  on  what  we  mean  by  the 
word  '  thing '  or  on  what  we  consider,  in  perception,  to  be  the 
object  of  knowledge. 

I  described  some  time  since  the  two  kinds  of  words  by 
which,  in  most  languages,  knowledge  has  been  expressed.     One 
chief  particular  of  the  difference  between  the  two,  is  our  placing 
ourselves  in  imagination,  when  speaking  of  knowledge,  lower  or  ; 
higher  upon  the  scale  of  sensation.  ) 

Knowledge  of  acquaintance  with  things  is  the  notion  of 
knowledge  which  is  suggested  by  the  lower  portion  of  the  scale 
of  sensation,  where  are  the  secondary  qualities  of  matter :  (the 


Hi 

I 

t 


il 


•} 


1 


122 


THE  SCALE   OF   SENSATION 


[chap. 


primary  qualities  enter  both  into  this  and  as  we  shall  see  into 
the  other  kind  of  knowledge,  most  specially  perhaps  and  neces- 
sarily into  this).  This  is  kenntniss,  connaissance  :  the  type  of  it 
is  usually  taken  to  be  the  sense  of  sight,  which  embodies  both 
secondary  and  primary  qualities :  hence  the  philosophical  name 
of  it  is  'intuition',  ' anschauung' :  and  hence  the  great  tendency 
in  the  term  'representation',  &c.,  as  applied  to  it,  to  give  the 
notion  of  an  actual  image.  It  would  have  saved  some  confusion 
of  thought,  at  the  expense  of  some  picturesqueness,  if  instead  of 
words  referring  to  the  sense  of  sight  to  express  notions  of  this 
kind,  we  could  have  used  or  coined  some  referring  to  the  sense 
of  touch  (in  the  double  character  of  feeling  and  handling,  nerv- 
ous and  muscular  perception),  such  a  word  e.g.  as  'betouch- 
ment';  the  term  'apprehension'  and  words  of  this  kind  have- 
something  of  the  character  which  I  mean  :  here,  however,  there 
would  have  been  danger  of  confusion  too  :  for  whatever  sensive 
power  (even  the  simplest)  we  refer  the  term  we  use  to,  the  re- 
ference to  the  sensive  power  will  be  something  of  a  metaphor, 
for  we  mean  to  express  something  more  general,  more  abstract 
than  the  reference  to  the  sensive  power  would  imply,  though 
something  which  the  sensive  power  suggests  to  us.  Any  feel- 
ing distinctly  attended  to  is  more  or  less  of  an  intuition,  and 
any  recurrence  of  such  feeling,  similarly  attended  to,  is  more 
\  or  less  of  a  representation. 

If  we  take  knowledge  of  acquaintance,  or  by  way  of  in- 
tuition in  this  use  of  the  term,  for  the  type  of  knowledge,  and 
mean  by  the  word  '  thing',  as  is  its  real  meaning,  '  the  object 
of  our  knowledge',  then  of  course  our  perception  or  knowledge 
of  things  is  immediate :  the  words  intuitive  and  immediate  in 
this  sense  will  mean  the  same  thing.  The  'thing'  in  this  view 
is  what  we  see,  handle,  smell,  taste.  I  have  expressed  the  fact 
this  way  as  the  way  in  which  it  would  be  expressed,  and  to  shew 
how  many  philosophical  disputes  arise  from  mere  inattention 
to  language.  Is  here  expresses  a  relation  of  co-extensiveness 
or  identity :  it  does  not  mean  that  what  follows  it  is  a  predicate 
or  part  of  the  description  of  that  which  goes  before.  The  pro- 
position is  true  converted :  what  we  see,  handle,  smell,  taste, 
is  the  thing.  Even  so  it  is  not  absolutely  safe  from  misappre- 
hension: and  it  is  this  misapprehension  which  gives  rise  to 


VI.] 


OR  KNOWLEDGE. 


123 


t 


the  notion  of  something  mysterious  contained  in  the  word  what. 
What  is  it  we  see,  handle,  &c.  people  will  ask :  with  some 
reason  we  shall  see  presently,  though  not  with  the  reason  they 
sometimes  think.  What  is  the  substratum  or  substance  of 
which  these  qualities  which  we  perceive,  seeableness  or  colour, 
handleableness  or  shape,  taste,  smell,  &c.  are  attributes  ?  The 
answer  is,  there  is,  in  the  sense  you  mean,  none  such :  the 
thing  itself  is  really,  so  far  as  knowledge  is  concerned  (on  this 
view  of  knowledge  as  acquaintance),  determined  by  these  par- 
ticulars which  you  perceive  about  it,  which  are  really  therefore 
the  elements  or  constituents  of  it.  But  because  you  do  not 
know  how  many  of  these  constituents  there  are  (and  for  an- 
other reason  too,  which  we  shall  see)  you  choose,  in  thought  or 
language,  to  suppose  the  thing  itself  unknown,  and  to  call  all 
these  things  qualities  or  adjuncts  of  it.  In  reality,  on  this 
view  of  knowledge,  there  is  nothing  more  to  be  known  than  the 
sum  of  these  qualities. 

But  of  these  qualities  of  the  supposed  thing  there  is  one  of 
transcendant  importance,  which  is  its  thinghood  or  reality, 
which  is  really  the  same  notion  as  that  of  the  relation  of  its 
parts  to  each  other,  and  of  itself  to  what  is  about  it.  In  the 
view  of  knowledge  as  acquaintance  with  things,  this  is  not  to 
be  treated  as  a  mysterious  substratum  of  the  qualities,  but  is 
a  quality  itself,  only  the  most  important,  and  the  particulars  of 
which  we  are  always  endeavouring  to  discover.  I  have  men- 
tioned, that  all  the  discussion  about  things  in  themselves  seems 
to  me  to  arise  from  the  treating  as  two  different  portions  of  know- 
ledge what  are  really  two  different  views  of  the  same  knowledge. 
The  cardinal  quality  of  a  sensible  object  of  knowledge,  which 
is  what  I  have  called  its  '  reality'  or  'unity'  vanishes  out  of  the 
field  of  knowledge  of  acquaintance  with  things,  for  this  reason, 
that  it  belongs  to  a  higher  part  of  the  scale  of  sensation  and 
thought  than  that  knowledge  will  really  apply  to. 

It  is  possible  however,  that  we  may  take  acquaintance  with 
things,  instead  of  being  the  type  of  knowledge,  to  be  no  know- 
ledge at  all,  and  to  resolve  all  intellect  at  bottom  merely  into 
a  sort  of  habit  or  familiarity  :  just  as  from  passing  a  tree  every 
day  we  might  know,  entirely  without  intellectual  exercise,  every 
branch  and  leaf  of  it,  or  might  know  to  little  purpose  every 


U' 


i\ 


\i 


124      THB  SCALE  OF  SENSATION  OR  KNOWLEDGE.     [CHAP.  VI. 

line  on  the  face  and  every  button  on  the  coat  of  a  man  whom 
^  we  meet  every  day,  but  to  whom  we  had  never  spoken.  We 
may  take  for  type  of  knowledge  the  knowledge  of  facts  about 
things,  judgment. 

This  is  the  logical  notion  of  knowledge,  and  it  is  because  it 
is  so  that,  in  the  manner  which  I  have  mentioned,  knowledge 
M"  acquaintance,  in  order  to  enter  into  thought  and  language, 
is  put  into  this  form,  and  the  thing  we  make  acquaintance  with 
is  split  into  substance  and  qualities,  to  which  correspond,  logic- 
ally, subject  and  possible  predicates. 

Knowledge,  when  the  former  type  is  taken  of  it,  is  a  matter 
of  communication,  the  suggestion  of  which  is  given  by  the  com- 
munication between  our  body  and  the  external  universe :  when 
this  latter  tjrpe  is  taken,  it  is  a  matter  of  question  and  answer, 
of  dissection  and  analysis :  we  stand  as  it  were  behind  the  great 
web  of  reality,  of  which  we  do  not,  so  far,  see  the  face ;  or 
rather,  seeing  the  face,  we  endeavour  to  get  behind  it 

Of  knowledge  of  this  type  there  are  continually  varying 
actual  objects,  which  are  the  facts  we  know  about  things  :  these 
facts  put  together  make  up  in  this  view  the  thing,  and  we  are 
said  to  have  a  conception  of  the  thing,  as  distinct  from  an  in- 
tuition. 

Truth,  in  the  intuitive  view  of  knowledge,  is  simply  undis- 
turbedness  or  purity :  in  the  conceptive,  it  is  thinking  rightly 
or  as  we  should  about  things :  the  highest  notion  of  truth  alto- 
gether is  perhaps  the  accordance  of  the  two  descriptions  of 
knowledge,  or  the  agreement  of  the  results  of  the  one  with 
\  those  of  the  other. 


CHAPTER   VII. 

SIR  WILLIAM  HAMILTON— CONSCIOUSNESS  OF 

MATTER. 

In  the  last  Chapter  but  one  I  have  made  some  general  re- 
marks on  Sir  William  Hamilton's  Philosophy,  but  have  as  yet 
made  little  or  no  quotation  from  him. 

I  shall  probably  have  occasion,  in  a  later  Chapter  than  this\ 
to  refer  to  his  philosophy  again :  in  the  present  Chapter  I  will 
try  to  exhibit  the  part  of  it  with  which  I  am  most  concerned 
in  his  own  words  as  well  as  the  proof  which  he  gives  of  it. 

Upon  this  part  of  his  philosophy,  our  (supposed)  consciousness 
of  matter,  I  have  myself  written,  I  fear,  with,  some  confusion  (and 
I  must  apologise  for  it)  in  this  way  :  I  have  done  my  best  to 
enter  into  Sir  William  Hamilton's  view,  by  putting  it  to  myself 
in  various  ways,  and  have  seemed  to  myself  thus  to  come  to 
see  it  more  clearly — it  is  probable  that  what  I  have  written 
will  bear  the  traces  of  this  effort.  But  certainly,  the  more  I 
seem  to  myself  to  understand  it,  the  less  do  I  agree  with  it. 

I  should  almost  be  disposed  to  consider  it  the  master-con- 
fusion, the  *temporis  partus  maximus'  of  mis-psychology — but 
we  will  see. 

I  have  myself  not  the  slightest  objection  to  say  that  we  are 
conscious  of  matter,  if  these  are  the  terms  we  like  to  use,  in 
this  way.  Matter  is  a  thing  we  know,  and  whatever  we  know 
we  may  be  said  to  be  conscious  of,  if  we  talk  of  '  consciousuess 
of  things :  all  our  knowledge,  even  all  our  thought,  is  con- 
sciousness, as  I  have  said  myself  as  strongly  as  I  can :  what  we 
know  then,  and  not  only  that,  but  what  we  imagine,  what  we 
conceive,  what  we  remember,  we  are  conscious  of:  this  very 
simple  fact,  or  rather  manner  of  expression  seems  to  me  to  be 
all  the  substance  of  many  pages  of  Sir  William  Hamilton, 
where  he  proves  that  the  different  faculties,  by  which,  in  the 
language  of  some  philosophers,  we  are  said  to  do  these  various 

^  In  the  next  part. 


^ 


I' 


!:■ 
I 


126 


SIR   WILLIAM    HAMILTON 


[chap. 


things,  are  only  so  many  manners  of  consciousness.  Matter, 
then,  is  a  thing  that  we  are  conscious  of:  this  is  my  cardinal 
doctrine :  I  put  it  two  ways :  it  is  because  matter  is  after  all, 
80  far  as  we  can  tell,  only  sl  thing  that  we  are  conscious  of— 
a  thought  of  ours  supposed  warranted,  a  mental  creation  pro- 
perly created,  a  something  the  certainty  of  the  existence  of 
which  depends  for  us  on  the  certainty  of  our  own  existence, 
and  the  trustworthiness  of  our  own  feeling— that  the  study  of 
consciousness  is  higher  than  the  study  of  matter  (in  my  lan- 
guage, philosophy  than  phenomenalism)  and  that  we  ourselves, 
who  are  conscious,  know  ourselves,  preeminently,  with  a  differ- 
ent knowledge  from  that  with  which  we  know  matter,  of  which 
we  are  conscious,  just  as  we  know  also  our  own  thoughts  and 
feelings  with  a  consciousness  more  intimate  and  immediate  than 
that  with  which  we  know  matter,  since  we  mean  by  matter 
something  which  we  suppose  to  give  occasion  to  varieties  of 
such  feelings  :  that  is  one  way  :  again  because  matter  is  a  thing 
which  we  are  conscious  of,  therefore  there  is  a  study  of  it  as 
we  are  conscious  of  it,  which  we  ihay  pursue  without  at  all 
troubling  ourselves  what  the  being  conscious  of  it  means,  and 
this  is  what  I  call '  phenomenalism  \ 

My  hesitation  in  treating  of  Sir  William  Hamilton  s  view 
has  arisen  from  an  anxious  desire  not  to  misinterpret  him:  but 
the  more  I  study  what  he  says,  the  more  I  think  that  his  view 
is  nothing  like  such  consciousness  of  matter  as  this,  but  some- 
thing quite  different  Whatever  we  are  conscious  of  must  be, 
so  far  as  we  are  conscious  of  it,  an  object  of  consciousness,  a 
creation  of  the  mind:  I  really  suppose  that  what  Sir  William 
Hamilton  means  by  saying  that  the  whole  body  of  philosophers 
only  allow  us  to  be  conscious  of  modifications  of  the  ego,  is  that, 
in  fact,  they  say  this,  which  I  have  said  above:  and  that  he 
himself  really  says  against  it  that  we  may,  making  the  phe- 
nomenalist  (which,  used  in  connection  with  philosophy,  is  the 
mis-psychologist)  supposition  to  begin  with,  that  the  things, 
or  matter,  are  actually,  spatially,  existing  before  us,  describe 
our  relation  to  such  things  as  the  being  conscious  of  them, 
without  altering  the  meaning  of  the  word  'conscious',  but  using 
it  still  in  the  same  manner,  drawing  the  same  conclusions 
from  it,  as  we  do  when  we  use  it  as  to  the  previously  sup- 


VIL] 


CONSCIOUSNESS   OF   MATTER. 


127 


posed  objects  of  consciousness,  mental  conceptions,  mental  states, 
self  Matter  is  supposed  first  as  existing,  described,  defined, 
quite  independent  of  consciousness:  Sir  William  Hamilton  is 
not  finding  matter  by  examining  consciousness,  but  knows  it 
already  and  lays  down  what  it  is.  Consciousness  then,  which 
is  variously  synonymized,  defined,  particularized,  as  thought, 
feeling,  will,  and  by  other  such  notions  or  expressions,  all,  for 
that  is  the  condition  of  them,  referrible  to  a  conscious  or  sen- 
tient  subject,  is  examined  as  to  its  *  contents',  in  Sir  William 
Hamilton's  expression,  which  of  course  must  be  in  some  way 
homogeneous  with,  or  predicable  of,  these  things,  thought, 
feeling,  &c. :  and  then  among  the  contents  of  it  there  comes 
to  be  found  this  matter  known  otherwise,  so  entirely  hetero- 
geneous, with  its  constituents  of  oxygen,  light,  &c.,  and  its 
qualities  and  predicates  of  shape,  colour,  taste,  sound,  &c. : 
and  from  its  being  thus  supposedly  found  the  conclusion  ls 
drawn  that  matter  with  its  constituents  or  .qualities  exists  to  us 
in  the  same  manner  and  with  the  same  reality  as  the  thought, 
feeling,  &c.  which  are  the  other  contents  of  consciousness,  and 
this  conclusion  is  supposed  to  be  necessary  to  obviate  scepticism. 

Against  this  incongruity  I  will  endeavour  to  put  what  seems 
to  me  the  truth. 

We  are  conscious  of  beliefs,  thoughts,  feelings,  occupying 
our  mind  with  various  degrees  of  conviction  or  cogency,  and 
next  in  conviction  to  the  central  belief  that  we  exist  at  all,  is 
the  belief  that  we  exist  with  what  we  call  a  body,  by  which 
we  communicate  with  much  which  is  not  only  independent  of 
our  primal  selves,  but  external  to  our  corporeal  selves,  and 
what  we  thus,  speaking  from  our  primal  selves,  think  we  com- 
municate with,  or,  speaking  from  our  corporeal  selves,  actually 
do  communicate  with,  we  call  the  universe  of  matter. 

Taking  this  universe  of  matter,  with  our  corporeal  selves  in 
the  middle  of  it,  up  here  and  with  these  considerations  about  it  if 
we  are  philosophers,  and,  if  we  do  not  care  to  philosophize,  simply 
up  without  these  considerations  at  all :  and  proceeding  in  the 
reverse  direction  to  that  in  which,  if  we  have  made  these  consider- 
ations, we  have  hitherto  proceeded  :  this  universe  of  matter  com- 
m'anicates  with  our  body  and  all  its  various  sensive  organization, 
and  concurrently  with  this  various  communication  there  is  various 


i 


128 


SIE  WILLIAM   HAMILTON — 


[chap. 


VII.] 


CONSCIOUSNESS   OF   MATTER. 


129 


consciousness,  with  which  this  course  is  brought  to  a  halt — the 
other  is  complete,  this  is  not — for  in  the  consciousness  thus 
come  to  we  say  /,  /  know,  and  other  such  things  of  which  this 
way  of  consideration  can  take  no  account,  and  which,  belonging 
really  to  the  other,  absorb  everything  which  belongs  to  this, 
and  make  this  appear  a  something  secondary,  included,  an  ab- 
straction. 

I  hope  the  reader  will  give  me  credit  for  a  wish  to  make 
Sir  William  Hamilton's  view  intelligible  to  him,  so  far  as  it 
can  be  so  made — of  course  he  may  think  it  would  have  been 
betjier  without  my  aid — and  for  being  thus  long,  both  upon  the 
view  itself  and  the  opposite  view,  with  this  purpose. 

But  we  will  now  take  Sir  William  Hamilton's  own  words. 
I  will  give  first  his  various  enunciations  of  his  view,  then  his 
proof  of  it :  and  on  his  proof  I  will  first  examine  whether  it 
proves  what  he  wishes,  and  next,  if  it  proves  anything,  what  it 
proves. 

First  of  all,  hgwever,  I  will  make  a  general  remark  on  his 
reasoning,  and  on  his  frequent  quotation. 

His  reasoning  is,  it  seems  to  me,  sometimes  very  doubtful : 
I  think  I  could  find  more  instances  like  the  following. 

Philosophers,  he  says*,  refuse  to  admit  the  fact  of  conscious- 
ness, the  immediate  perception  of  external  things,  declare  it  to 
be  impossible,  and  give  reasons  for  thinking  so :  these  reasons,  he 
continues  ought,  if  they  are  good  for  anything,  to  establish  the 
absolute  necessity  for  the  rejection  of  this  testimony  of  con- 
sciousness :  he  will  endeavour  to  refute  them,  *  by  showing  that 
they  do  not  establish  the  necessity  required'.  He  finds  ^ye 
such  reasons  given :  the  second  is,  "  Mind  and  matter  are  sub- 
stances of  different  and  even  opposite  natures :  mind  cannot 
therefore  be  conscious  or  immediately  cognisant  of  matter." 
Sir  William  Hamilton  conceives  it  is  an  answer  to  this  to  say: 
**  But  the  very  first  fact  of  our  experience  contradicts  the  asser- 
tion, that  mind,  as  of  an  opposite  nature,  can  have  no  imme- 
diate cognisance  of  matter :  for  the  primary  datum  of  con- 
"  sciousness  is,  that  in  perception,  we  have  an  intuitive  knowledge 
"  of  the  ego  and  of  the  non-ego,  equally  and  at  once  "  (know- 

*  VoL  n.  p.  ii8. 


« 


t< 


u 


€t 


ledge  of  the  non-ego  and  of  matter  being  not,  with  Sir  William 
Hamilton,  distinguished)  **.  The  philosophers  reject  what  Sir 
William  Hamilton  considers  the  testimony  of  consciousness,  be- 
cause the  fact  which,  it  is  averred,  it  bears  witness  to,  they  say 
is  impossible.  Sir  William  Hamilton  undertakes,  against  five 
reasons,  to  prove  the  possibility.  The  above  is  the  way  in 
which  he  does  so  against  one  of  them.  To  prove  the  possi- 
bility, he  thinks  it  enough  straightforwardly  to  re-assert  the  fact 
which  is  in  dispute  on  the  gi'ound  of  its  being  impossible.  The 
philosophers  say.  What  you  assign  as  a  datum  of  consciousness 
cannot  be  admitted  as  such,  because  mind  can  have  no  im- 
mediate cognisance  of  the  non-ego  or  of  matter:  he  thinks  it 
is  an  answer  to  this  to  say,  You  are  wrong  in  saying  mind 
cannot  have  immediate  consciousness  of  matter,  because  that 
which  I  have  assigned  as  a  datum  of  consciousness  is  such  a 
datum,  and  the  primary  datum^ 

I  notice  this,  which  I  hope  the  reader  will  examine  for 
himself,  not  in  respect  of  the  consideration,  which  here  is  wrong 
or  which  is  right,  but  because  it  shows  a  notion  of  ai'gument 
which,  in  the  case  of  any  with  whom,  as  with  Sir  William 
Hamilton,  argument  is  so  main  a  feature,  rather  affects  one's 
confidence  in  him.  The  passage  here  quoted  is  not  something 
occurring  obiter,  or  an  apparent  inadvertence,  but  is  introduced 
as  is  often  Sir  William  Hamilton's  wont,  with  much  parade. 

Next,  on  his  quotations. 

Sir  William  Hamilton's  Lectures,  as  published  by  Professors 
Mansel    and    Veitch  with  full  references,   form  a  book  the 

^  Vol.  n.  p.  122. 

*  I  do  not  lay  so  much  stress  upon  another  thing  which  I  will  just  mention 
here,  which  is  a  certain  degree  of  inconsistency  of  view  in  what  is  said  in 
different  places,  hecause  some  uncertainty  of  view,  possibly  even  involving  incon- 
sistency, is  by  no  means  a  defect  in  a  philosopher  in  my  eyes,  if  only  it  seems  to 
arise  not  from  confused  thought,  but  from  a  continued  nism  in  the  conception  of 
truth,  a  struggle  and  a  feeling  after  it.  But  if  we  compare  Sir  William  Hamil- 
ton's language  here  with  the  first  portion  of  his  proof,  which  I  shall  shortly  notice, 
it  is  certainly  remarkable.  This  supposed  fact  of  mind  and  matter  being  opposite, 
is  what  he  rested  upon  there  as  a  strong  argument  for  the  knowledge  of  the  two 
being  one  knowledge,  viz.  consciousness :  tww,  what  he  had  then  brought  forward 
as  an  argument  for  the  thing,  the  philosophers  are  represented  as  bringing  forward 
as  an  argument  against  the  possibility  of  it :  and  he,  as  if  he  had  forgotten  his 
own  argument,  instead  of  retorting  the  argument  upon  them,  or  doing  anything  o£ 
that  kind,  answers  as  we  see,  by  simply  re-stating  the  matter  in  dispute. 

9 


^  I 


I  I' 


i. 


130 


SIR   WILLIAM    HAMILTON — 


[chap. 


value  of  which  canDot  be  over-estimated  to  the  student  who  has 
opportunity  to  turn  to  the  references.  But  I  trust  that  the 
notion  of  learning,  and  of  its  meaning  and  value,  which  made 
Sir  William  Hamilton  quote  so  much,  is  going  out  of  fashion. 
I  am  quite  ready  to  consider,  that  for  reporting  a  philosopher's 
opinion,  no  person  could  have  been  found  better,  both  in  the 
way  of  conscientiousness  and  of  penetration,  than  Sir  William 
Hamilton.  But  I  should  have  thought  that  his  own  endless  and 
complicated  discussions  as  to  Keid's  misconstruing  of  those 
before  him,  and  Brown's  misconstruing  of  Beid,  and  I  know 
not  what  more,  would  have  suggested  to  him  of  how  very  little 
value  an  off-hand  report  of  a  philosopher's  opinion  on  an 
intricate  and  disputed  matter  is ;  so  that  his  frequent  citations 
of  philosophers  and  quotations  of  them,  in  strings  and  shoals, 
might  as  to  value  have  been  spared,  though  I  fully  acknow- 
ledofe  the  interest  of  them.  When  we  come  to  Mr  Mill,  we 
shall  see  perhaps  the  value  of  one  such  string. 

In  my  own  opinion,  but  that  is  my  own  only,  there  is  some- 
thing depressing  in  this  weight  of  learning,  in  this  manner : 
nothing  can  come  into  one's  mind,  but  one  is  told,  Oh,  that  is 
the  opinion  of  such  and  such  a  person  long  ago :  and  naturally 
therefore  on  the  other  hand  if  anything  should  come  into  our 
mind  which  we  cannot  find  in  any  body,  the  air  of  a  discoverer 
is  put  on  for  very  little,  and  in  a  manner  which  seems  to  me 
unworthy  of  those  whose  business  is  simply  truth.  So  long  as 
a  philosopher's  meaning  is  as  discussible  in  the  case  of  our 
predecessors,  as  Sir  William  Hamilton  has  in  practice  shown, 
I  am  suspicious  both  of  the  professed  originalities  and  of  the 
references  of  opinion  to  this  or  that  philosopher.  And  I  can 
conceive  nothing  more  noxious  for  students  than  to  get  into  the 
habit  of  saying  to  themselves  about  their  ordinary  philosophical 
thought,  *0h,  somebody  must  have  thought  it  all  before',  and 
about  one  or  two  particularities  perhaps,  *  Ah,  but  this  is  some- 
thing which  I  have  been  the  first  to  say'.  The  progress  of  philo- 
sophy is  a  thinking,  and  a  re-thinking,  and  a  re-thinking  still 
more  clearly  and  better,  about  the  same  matters  of  everlasting 
interest,  and  the  philosophic  disposition  is  to  value  correct 
thought  about  these  greater  things,  rather  than  small  originality, 
if  it  be  so,  in  detail. 


VII.] 


CONSCIOUSNESS    OF    MATTER. 


131 


(I 


« 


I  will  now  proceed  to  give  the  various  manners  in  which 
Sir  William  Hamilton  enunciates  his  doctrine,  that  we  are 
conscious  of  matter. 

1.  The  primary  datum  of  consciousness  is  described  to  be: 
"That    we   are  immediately  cognitive  of  the  phaenomena  of 

matter  and  of  the  phaenomena  of  mind* ". 

2.  This  is  called  in  the  passage  cited  a  short  time  since : 
That  we  have  an  intuitive  knowledge  of  the  ego  and  of  the 

'*  non-ego,  equally  and  at  once'"'. 

3.  Again :  "  Consciousness  declares  that  we  have  an  imme- 
"diate  knowledge  of  an  ego,  and  of  an  external  non-ego'"'. 

4.  Again:  "The  fact  to  which  consciousness  testifies  is — 
"that  the  object,  of  which  we  are  conscious  in  perception,  is  the 
"  external  reality  as  existing,  and  not  merely  its  representation 
"in  the  percipient  mind*". 

5.  In  the  following  passage  the  two  portions  of  this  intui- 
tive knowledge  are  looked  at  separately. 

"  The  acquisition  of  knowledge  can  only  be  accomplished 
"  by  the  immediate  presentation  of  a  fresh  object  to  conscious- 
"  ness,  in  other  words,  by  the  reception  of  a  new  object  within 
"  the  sphere  of  our  cognition.  We  have  thus  a  faculty  which 
"  may  be  called  the  Acquisitive,  or  the  Presentative,  or  the  Ke- 

ceptive". 
"  Now  new  or  adventitious  knowledge  may  be  either  of  things 

external,  or  of  things  internal,  in  other  words,  either  of  the 
"  phaenomena  of  the  non-ego,  or  of  the  phaenomena  of  the  ego : 

and  this  distinction  of  object  will  determine  a  subdivision  of 

this,  the  Acquisitive  Faculty.  If  the  object  of  knowledge  be 
"external,  the  faculty  receptive  or  presentative  of  such  objects 
"  will  be  a  consciousness  of  the  non-ego.     This  has  obtained  the 

name  of  External  Perception,  or  of  Perception  simply'*". 

6.  Again:  " The  great  fact" — is — "that  we  are  immediately 
conscious  in  perception  of  an  ego,  and  a  non-ego,  known  to- 
gether, and  known  in  contrast  to  each  other.     This  is  the  fact 

"  of  the  Duality  of  Consciousness 


it 


tt 


it 


it 


tt 


tt 


tt 


6» 


1  Vol.  n.  p.  86. 

*   Vol.  II.  p.   122, 

'  Vol,  II.  p.  29. 


*  Vol.  I.  p.  278. 
«  VoL  II.  p.  II. 
«  Vol.  I.  p.  288. 


9—2 


I 


132 


SIK  WILUAM    HAMILTON — 


[chap. 


7.  But  in  the  same  page:  ''Such  is  the  fact  of  perception 
"revealed  in  consciousness,  and  as  it  determines  mankind  in 
"general  in  their  almost  equal  assurance  of  the  reality  of  an 
"  external  world,  as  of  the  existence  of  their  own  minds.  Con- 
"  sciousness  declares  our  knowledge  of  material  qualities  to  be 
''intuitive  or  immediate — not  representative  or  mediate". 

I  will  comment  for  a  moment  on  each  one  of  these  passages. 

The  first  of  them  (I  will  not  discuss  the  exact  meaning  of 
immediate)  belongs  in  substance  to  that  view  which  made  me 
some  time  back  put  together  in  a  note  Sir  WiUiam  HamUton 
and  Mr  Mill.  The  passage  may  be  regarded  as  a  parallel  pas- 
sage from  a  different  point  of  view  to  Mr  Mill's  saying  that  the 
universe  is  made  up  of  mind  and  its  attributes,  and  body  and  its 
attributes.  In  reality  what  we  are  conscious  of  (beginning  from 
this  side,  viz.  the  side  of  consciousness)  is  the  phaenomena  of 
mind  (to  use  this  language),  and  a  large  class  of  these  phaeno- 
mena are  interpretations  of  the  felt  non-ego  or  supposed  oc- 
casions of  our  sensation,  which  ioterpretations  constitute  our 
thought  of  an  external  world,  while  we  call  this  thought  '  per- 
ception' in  virtue  of  another  important  phaenomenon  of  mind, 
viz,  our  belief  that  there  is  an  objective  reality  in  what  it 
leads  us  to — I  mean  by  objective  reality,  a  reality  as  certain 
to  us,  though  differently  known,  as  our  own  subjective  reality, 
which  is  our  type  of  reality.  So  much  for  that  side.  From  the 
other  side,  that  of  the  universe,  what  the  universe  is  made  up  of 
is  matter  variously  constituted  and  put  together,  more  or  less 
filling  space,  and  two  phaenomena  or  attributes  of  this  matter 
(if  so  we  are  to  call  considerations  more  important  than  the  mat- 
ter itself)  are,  one  that  there  is  an  order,  a  system  or  constitu- 
tion to  which  belong  the  laws  or  principles  of  the  above  con- 
stitution, the  other  that  certain  portions  of  the  matter,  our 
bodies  to  wit,  are  so  constituted  as  to  communicate  in  a  special 
manner  with  (in  the  language  of  many  philosophers  '  to  be  im- 
pressible by')  various  natural  agents  &c. — hence  there  are  in  the 
universe  the  great  phaenomenon  of  order,  or  a  sort  of  organi- 
zation of  the  whole,  and  the  scarcely  less  phaenomenon  of  life,  or 
the  particular  organization,  with  sensation  for  accompaniment,  in 
parts :  but  all  as  to  these  that  is  phaenomenon,  to  be  connected 
with  what  communicates  with  our  bodies,  is  that  there  is  order. 


VII.] 


CONSCIOUSNESS   OF   MATTER. 


133 


and  that  there  is  sensation.  I  will  not  say  but  that  from  the 
side  of  the  universe,  physiologists  may  make  something  of  sensa- 
tion as  a  part  of  life,  nor  have  I  any  wish  to  prevent  them 
making  as  much  as  they  can.  But  beginning  thus  with  reality 
as  indicated  to  us  by  our  bodies  and  what  communicates  with 
them,  what  happens  in  regard  of  facts  of  mind  is  that  if  we 
proceed  further  with  them  than  I  have  just  indicated  we  find 
our  first  supposition  or  our  universe  absorbed  by  them,  and 
must  go  over  to  the  view  which  I  gave  before,  from  conscious- 
ness. '  I '  is  not  a  phaenomenon  of  the  universe,  but  a  some- 
thing of  which,  as  we  then  saw,  the  universe  itself  is  a  belief 
or  a  thought. 

We  are  conscious  then  of  phaenomena  of  mind :  the  uni- 
verse consists  of  phaenomena  of  matter,  thought  of  by  mind, 
which  thinks  also  of  much  besides  (the  language,  'phaenomena', 
'mind',  &c.  belongs  to  others). 

I  wish  I  had  not  been  so  long  on  this,  but  in  fact  the 
whole  object  of  my  writing  these  pages  is  to  enforce  what  I 
have  given  just  here. 

The  second  and  sixth  passages  in  substance  I  agree  with, 
and  anything  which  I  may  have  to  say  besides  about  them 
will  come  shortly,  when  we  speak  of  Sir  William  Hamilton's 
proof.  It  will  be  observed  that  the  '  Duality  of  Consciousness  * 
as  thus  described  is  independent  of  any  notion  of  '  externality ' 
or  matter :  what  Sir  William  Hamilton  can  mean  by  refusing 
the  name  of  '  Dualism '  to  a  large  portion  of  philosophy  when 
this  is  his  Duality,  is  to  me  inconceivable. 

That  there  should  have  been  some  confusion  on  my  part 
in  making  out  Sir  William  Hamilton's  view  may  perhaps 
appear  excusable,  when  we  pass  from  these  passages  to  the 
third,  where  we  are  told  that  we  have  an  immediate  know- 
ledge of  a  non-ego  and  of  an  external  non-ego.  Here  we  have 
a  duality  given  essentially  different  from,  or  going  beyond,  the 
last.  It  is  this  '  external '  which  is  the  point.  And  the  fourth 
passage  is  to  the  same  effect.  So  also  the  seventh,  where  for 
'external'  we  have  ^material  qualities'.  To  this  we  shalJL:  .re- 
turn. 

The  fifth  passage  shows  what  I  call  the  wrong  psychology 
in  its  fullest  blossom.     There  is  a  parallel  drawn  (continued 


! 


•  I 


u 


•  11 

L" 
ri' 


i 


134 


SIR  WILLIAM   HAMILTON — 


[chap. 


in  what  follows,  if  the  reader  will  refer)  between  the  presenta- 
ation  or  consciousness  of  things  internal,  and  of  things  external. 
Now  the  things  internal  are  feelings,  thoughts  &c.,  and  the 
making  them  present,  or  their  becoming  present,  to  conscious- 
ness, is  reasonable  enough:  in  Sir  William  Hamilton's  wide 
view  of  consciousness  they  are  in  fact  always  so,  they  are  (in 
their  nature)  presentations  :  but  then,  next,  there  is  supposed  a 
material  object  already  existing  with  its  material  qualities,  and 
Sir  William  Hamilton  seems  to  think  that  by  merely  using  the 
same  word  he  can  make  it  be  believed  that  in  respect  of  (or  be- 
tween) consciousness  and  something  so  incongruous  with  it  as  this 
there  takes  place  a  process  in  some  way  similar  to  that  which  takes 
place  in  respect  of  (or  between)  consciousness  and  the  thoughts 
or  feelings.  What  is  of  consequence,  of  more  consequence  than 
the  criticism  of  Sir  William  Hamilton,  is  that  the  reader  should 
see  what  these  errors  spring  from,  or  what  I  have  called  the  bad 
psychology— it  is  the  confusing  together  the  difference,  on  the 
one  side,  between  thought  and  matter,  or  in  other  words  the  mu- 
tual independence  of  them,  and,  on  the  other,  the  externality, 
the  distance  from  us,  of  the  object,  or  the  difficulty  of  its  com- 
munication with  the  bodily  sense.  Of  course,  when  Sir  William 
Hamilton  begins  with  supposing  the  existence  already  of  the 
material  object,  he  cannot  but  have  in  mind  the  thought  of 
this  latter  communication  :  and  as  soon  as  he  thinks  he  has 
solved  the  difficulty  as  to  this,  so  that  object  and  sense  can 
come  together  without  anything  which  he  would  call  represen- 
tation, he  thinks  he  has  solved  the  other  difficulty.  But  what  he 
has  got  to  do  is  to  show  that  there  is,  or  can  be,  any  mean- 
ing in  fonn,  smell,  sound  being  present  to  thought  except  that 
they  are  thought,  thought  of,  thought  to  exist  and  to  occasion 
sensation  in  us. 

The  last  thing  which  I  will  notice  is  the  'almost'  in  the 
last  passage,  which  at  first  sight  one  might  be  disposed  to 
take  for  a  misprint.  In  fact  there  is  a  carelessness  in  the  sen- 
tence altogether,  which  would  lead  one  to  think  that  perhaps 
further  attention  would  have  put  it  differently.  For  what  has 
philosophy  to  do  with  qualifications  like  this  *  almost'?  And 
what  is  Sir  William  Hamilton's  *  consciousness  of  matter'  good 
for  at  all,  if  it  does  not  furnish  an  altogether  equal  assurance  of 


VII.] 


CONSCIOUSNESS   OF    MATTER. 


133 


the  reality  of  matter  and  of  that  of  mind  ?  And  what  is  the 
meaning  of  his  supporting,  as  he  does,  his  opinion  by  the  voice 
of  mankind  against  the  voice  of  philosophers,  if  all  that  the 
voice  of  mankind  goes  to  is  this  qualified,  partial,  assurance? 
If  the  expression  is  genuine,  it  seems  to  me  to  show  a  sort  of 
unphilosophical  misgiving,  which  really  I  think  does  belong  to 
all  the  psychology  with  its  notions  of  *  common  sense'  &c.  I 
hold  a  secondary  and  mediate  (if  Sir  William  Hamilton  likes 
the  term)  knowledge  of  an  external  world  compared  with  the 
knowledge  of  ourselves,  but  a  perfectly  equal  assurance  of  its 
reality  :  i.e.  the  assurance  is  in  each  case,  in  its  own  way,  com- 
plete :  what  is  the  use  of  establishing  a  primary  or  immediate 
knowledge,  to  come  after  all  to  an  almost  equal  assurance  ? 

So  much  for  Sir  William  Hamilton's  statements  of  his  doc- 
trine :  now  for  his  manner  of  establishing  it. 

Reid,  in  Sir  William  Hamilton's  view,  had  in  his  doctrine 
of  Common  Sense  taught  truly  on  the  subject  of  our  immediate 
knowledge  of  an  external  world,  but  had  been  wrong  in  re- 
stricting the  meaning  of  the  term  'consciousness'  to  self-con- 
sciousness or  reflection,  and  in  saying  that  the  knowledge  which 
we  had  in  the  former  case  was  by  a  faculty,  'perception ',  different 
from  consciousness.  Against  this  Sir  William  Hauiilton  argues 
that  it  is  wrong  so  to  restrict  'consciousness',  and  that  'per- 
ception' is  a  'consciousness'.  The  discussion  has  a  double  cha- 
racter, one  character  quite  indifferent  to  me,  and  I  should  hope 
to  many  of  my  readers.  It  is  a  convenient  often  and  useful  way 
of  speaking  to  speak  of  different  faculties  of  thought  or  know- 
ledge, but  the  realizing  them  to  such  an  extent  as  to  make  it 
a  matter  of  importance  whether  this  or  that  piece  of  thought 
belongs  to  one  or  another  faculty,  is  a  thing  I  do  not  care  for. 
But  the  discussion  has  another  character  more  important.  Sir 
William  Hamilton  makes  use  of  the  description  of  perception  as 
*  consciousness'  to  give  to  the  supposed  'immediate  knowledge' 
a  meaning  (so  far  as  meaning  of  the  kind  is  possible)  very  dif- 
ferent from  what  the  term  'Common  Sense*  or  any  such  term 
would  suggest  (I  beg  I  may  not  be  understood  as  giving  any 
opinion  as  to  what  Dr  Reid  meant).  This  meaning  I  have  en- 
deavoured to  describe  above. 

We  are  conscious  then,  says  Sir  William  Hamilton,  (1)  not 


, 


•N 


13G 


SIR  ■WILIilAM   HAMILTOK — 


[chap. 


iC 


it 


only  of  ourselves,  but  of  the  not-ourselves :    (2)  not  only  of 
perception,  but  of  the  object  which  we  perceive. 

I  will  begin  with  the  latter  of  these,  and  quote  at  length 
the  reasoning  on  it,  with  a  few  remarks  on  it :  the  reason  why 
I  take  the  other  last  will  be  seen\ 

**  Reid's  assertion,  that  we  are  conscious  of  the  act  of  per- 
"ception,  but  not  of  the  object  perceived,  involves,  first  of  all, 
"  a  general  absurdity.  For  it  virtually  asserts  that  we  can  know 
"  what  we  are  not  conscious  of  knowing.  An  act  of  perception 
"  is  an  act  of  knowledge ;  what  we  perceive,  that  we  know. 
"  Now,  if  in  perception  there  be  an  external  reality  known,  but 
"  of  which  external  reality  we  are,  on  Reid's  hypothesis,  not  con- 
"  scious,  then  is  there  an  object  known,  of  which  we  are  not  con- 
scious. But  as  we  know  only  inasmuch  as  we  know  that  we 
know, — in  other  words,  inasmuch  as  we  are  conscious  that 
"we  know, — we  cannot  know  an  object  without  being  conscious 
"  of  that  object  as  known ;  consequently,  we  cannot  perceive  an 
"object  without  being  conscious  of  that  object  as  perceived. 

"  But,  again,  how  is  it  possible  that  we  can  be  conscious  of 
"  an  operation  of  perception,  unless  consciousness  be  coextensive 
"with  that  act;  and  how  can  it  be  coextensive  with  the  act, 
and  not  also  conversant  with  its  object  ?  An  act  of  knowledge 
is  only  possible  in  relation  to  an  object, — and  it  is  an, act  of 
"one  kind  or  another  only  by  special  relation  to  a  particular 
"object.  Thus  the  object  at  once  determines  the  existence,  and 
"specifies  the  character  of  the  existence,  of  the  intellectual 
energy.  An  act  of  knowledge  existing  and  being  what  it  is 
only  by  relation  to  its  object,  it  is  manifest  that  the  act  can 
"  be  known  only  through  the  object  to  which  it  is  correlative ; 
"and  Reid's  supposition  that  an  operation  can  be  known  in 
consciousness  to  the  exclusion  of  its  object,  is  impossible.  For 
example,  I  see  the  inkstand.  How  can  I  be  conscious  that  my 
present  modification  exists, — that  it  is  a  perception,  and  not 
"  another  mental  state, — that  it  is  a  perception  of  sight  to  the 
"  exclusion  of  every  other  sense, — and,  finally,  that  it  is  a  per- 
"  ception  of  the  inkstand,  and  of  the  inkstand  only, — unless  my 
"consciousness  comprehend  within  its  sphere  the  object,  which 

*  Vol.  I.  pp.  227,  228. 


(( 


ti 


it 


it 


it 


it 


it 


VII.] 


CONSCIOUSNESS   OF   MATTER. 


137 


"  at  once  determines  the  existence  of  the  act,  qualifies  its  kind, 
"  and  distinguishes  its  individuality  ?  Annihilate  the  ink- 
"  stand,  you  annihilate  the  perception ;  annihilate  the  conscious- 
"ness  of  the  object,  you  annihilate  the  consciousness  of  the 
"  operation." 

This  proof,  so  to  call  it,  seems  to  me  to  have  three  mem- 
bers, each,  for  a  different  reason,  wrong. 

In  the  first  paragraph,  so  far  as  I  can  make  out,  there  is  a 
non-sequitur  at  the  point  of  the  conclusion :  'we  know  an  object 
inasmuch  as  we  are  conscious  that  we  know  an  object'  (or  'we 
cannot  know  an  object  without  being  so  conscious')  is  treated 
as  if  it  were  the  same  sentence  as,  '  we  cannot  know  an  object 
without  being  conscious  of  that  object  as  known' — the  whole 
question  in  dispute  is  the  legitimacy  of  the  application  of  the 
term  'consciousness'  to  the  object — Sir  William  Hamilton 
settles  the  dispute  by  simply  so  applying  it,  which  he  is  at 
liberty  to  do,  and  then,  which  he  is  not  at  liberty  to  do,  con- 
cluding that  his  so  applying  it  is  a  reason  why  it  ought  to  be 
so  applied. 

The  second  portion  of  the  argument,  occupying  the  first 
half  of  the  second  paragraph,  is  a  piece  of  what  I  call  '  notion- 
alism'.  Knowledge  is  described  as  'an  act';  an  act  must  have 
an  object,  and  can  be  known  only  through  the  object — ^whether 
there  is  meaning  or  not  in  this,  I  recognise  no  cogency  in  it. 
Knowledge  might  be  described  in  many  other  ways  than  as 
being  an  act,  and  in  calling  it  an  act  I  should  in  no  degree 
mean  that  it  was  thereby  brought  under  the  laws  of  a  sort  of 
general  science  of  acting  or  agency,  supposing  that  there  was 
such. 

The  third  or  remaining  portion  of  the  argument  seems  to  me 
to  belong  to  the  wrong  psychology.  I  do  not  understand  the 
phrase,  'unless  my  consciousness  comprehend  within  its  sphere 
the  object'.  Consciousness  doubtless  comprehends  within  its 
sphere  the  object  of  the  consciousness,  but  what  it  is  that  is  the 
object  of  the  consciousness  is  just  the  question  in  dispute.  Sir 
William  Hamilton  wants  to  prove  that  consciousness  compre- 
hends within  its  sphere  the  inkstand,  and  seems  to  think  that  can 
be  done  by  calling  the  inkstand  an  object.  The  expression  'an- 
nihilate the  inkstand,  you  annihilate  the  perception'  shows  the 


;IH 


f 


ll 


I 


138 


SIR   WILLUM    HAMILTON — 


[chap. 


wrong  view:  i.  e.  the  phenomenalist  view  trying  to  swell  itself 
out  to  include  consciousness,  which  makes  the  bad  psychology. 
I  should  say:  Are  we  in  the  spatial  world?  then  I  know 
nothing  about  consciousness  of  things — it  does  not  belong  here 
— I  know  about  things,  and  communication  of  what  we  call 
external  things  with  one  important  thing  which  we  call  our 
body,  and  accompaniment  of  this  communication  with  sensation — 
which  we  have  to  stop  with:  annihilate  the  inkstand,  there  is 
vacant  space,  no  communication,  no  accompanying  sensation: 
call  the  sensation  perception,  if  you  like,  use  the  language  if 
you  like  'perception  of  the  thing':  then  with  the  inkstand,  you 
annihilate  the  perception  of  the  thing:  but  all  this  cannot 
prove,  when  we  start  with  phenomena,  that  consciousness  of 
the  thing,  or  perception  of  it,  represents  any  fact,  anything  to 
do  or  done  between  the  mind  and  the  thing — any  relation 
between  them.  The  thing  is  what  it-  is — the  feeling  or  con- 
sciousness is  what  it  is— there  we  have  to  stop. 

If  instead  of  starting  with  the  spatial  world  and  coming  in 
to  ourselves,  we  are  awaking  without  any  previous  knowledge 
or  remembrance,  and  opening,  as  a  sailor  might  say,  the  spatial 
world  point  after  point,  feature  after  feature,  thing  after  thing, 
to  ourselves — then  the  truth  is  not  perhaps  exactly  the  converse 
of  what  Sir  William  Hamilton  says — annihilate  the  perception 
and  you  annihilate  the  inkstand — but  something  like  it — sup- 
pose no  perception  of  an  inkstand  where  perception  of  an  ink- 
stand ought  to  be,  and  (barring  sensal  defect  or  disease,  which 
is  not  our  present  business)  there  is  no  inkstand. 

So  much  for  the  second  portion  of  Sir  William  Hamilton's 
proof:  the  first  is  of  a  different  nature.  Having  quoted  the 
other  portion  at  such  length,  I  cannot  do  the  same  with  this : 
I  trust  the  reader  will  refer  to  the  book :  but  I  will  endeavour 
to  give  as  good  an  account  of  it  as  I  can. 

Dr  Reid  then  'maintains*,  says  Sir  William  Hamilton,  'that 
we  are  conscious  of  our  perception  of  a  rose,  but  not  of  the  rose 
perceived'.  'That  we  know  the  ego  by  one  act  of  knowledge' 
(viz.  consciousness),  'the  non-ego  by  another'  (viz.  perception). 
This  doctrine  he  proceeds  to  refute  \ 

I  will  now  quote:  "It  is  not  only  a  logical  axiom,  but  a 

'  Vol.  I.  p.  215. 


vn.] 


CONSCIOUSNESS   OF   MATTER. 


139 


i< 


€t 


« 


m' 


"self-evident  truth,  that  the  knowledge  of  opposites  is  one. 
"Thus  we  cannot  know  what  is  tall  without  knowing  what  is 
"  short, — we  know  what  is  virtue  only  as  we  know  what  is  vice — 
"the  science  of  health  is  but  another  name  for  the  science  of 
"  disease.  Nor  do  we  know  the  opposites,  the  I  and  Thou,  the 
"  ego  and  non-ego,  the  subject  and  object,  mind  and  matter,  by  a 

"different  law Unless  we  are  prepared  to  maintain  that 

"  the  faculty  cognisant  of  self  and  not- self  is  different  from  the 
faculty  cognisant  of  not-self  and  self,  we  must  allow  that  the 
ego  and  non-ego  are  known  and  discriminated  in  the  same 
indivisible  act  of  knowledge".  And  this  faculty  or  act  of  know- 
ledge he  proceeds  to  describe  as  '  consciousness'. 

This  is  a  line  of  proof  with  which,  if  we  examine  what 
it  really  proves,  I  heartily  concur.  But  what  does  it  really 
prove  ? 

Let  us  look  at  Sir  William  Hamilton's  catalogue  of  oppo- 
sites. The  nature  of  the  antithesis  between  subject  and  object 
I  examined  before.  Whether  here  Sir  William  Hamilton  con- 
siders all  these  as  different  oppositions,  or  different  views  of  the 
same  opposition,  I  cannot  tell.  But  what  is  the  nature  of  the 
antithesis  between  mind  and  matter?  Mind  and  matter  are 
repeatedly  called  by  Sir  William  Hamilton  opposite.  I  suppose 
that  what  at  the  top  of  the  same  page,  he  puts  into  the  mouth 
of  the  partisans  of  Dr  Reid,  but  it  would  appear,  fully  admits, 
may  be  taken  as  an  explanation  of  what  he  means  by  this  oppo- 
sition. "  Mind  and  matter  are  mutually  separated  by  the  whole 
diameter  of  being.  Mind  and  matter  are,  in  fact,  nothing  but 
words  to  express  the  series  of  phaenomena  known  less  in  them- 
"  selves,  than  in  contradistinction  from  each  other".  This  loose 
manner  of  speaking,  'known  less  in  themselves  than  ...',  which 
resembles  the  'almost'  on  which  I  commented  before,  and 
which  is  quite  inconsistent  with  the  argument,  seems  to  me 
to  denote  a  want  of  confidence  in  the  opinion  held,  a  fear  of 
going  through  with  it,  or  it  may  be  a  want  of  full  sight  and 
hold  of  it.  The  first  of  the  two  sentences  I  have  just  quoted 
may  be  perfectly  true,  but  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  opposition 
which  we  are  now  concerned  with. '  An  opposition  of  such 
'separation'  as  that  could  not  make  the  two  things  object  of 
one  faculty.    But  an  opposition  of  'contradistinction '  such  as  that 


t( 


n 


I 

'I 


\ 


I 

.f 


If 

I 


140 


SIR   WILLIAM   HAMILTON — 


[chap. 


mentioned  in  the  second  sentence,  (if  we  omit  the  qualification 
which  destroys  the  argument)  would.  Only  the  argument  bears 
to  me  a  different  aspect  from  that  which  it  does  to  Sir  Wil- 
liam Hamilton,  and  I  should  use  it  to  draw  from  it  the  con- 
clusion that  the  two  things  (or  any  two  things)  which,  in  the 
manner  which  he  describes,  are  the  objects  of  one  faculty  or 
one  act  of  knowledge,  must  be  opposites  of  each  other,  and 
must  be  known  in  mutual  contradistinction.  This  the  ego  and 
non-effo  are.     But  what  is  the  case  as  to  mind  and  matter  ? 

The  fact  of  the  contradistinctional  opposition  of  matter  to 
mind  is,  it  appears  to  me,  my  great  fact,  not  his — it  belongs  to 
the  philosophical  view,  not  to  the  psychological — and,  coupled 
with  the  inevitable  existence  to  us  of  mind,  thought,  ourselves, 
it  is  what  makes  my  fundamental  view.  For  I  recognise  two 
manners  of  existence,  in  mutual  opposition  or  contradistinction, 
thinkingness  and  thoughtness,  and  it  is  this  latter  which,  when 
we  believe  the  thought  correct  or  justified,  we  call  phenomenal 
existence  or  matter.  In  this  view  I  have  no  objection  to  speak 
of  our  consciousness  of  matter. 

But  matter,  from  Sir  William  Hamilton's  phenomenalist 
(which  here  is  the  wrongly  psychological)  point  of  view,  is 
something  quite  different  from  this.  He  supposes  the  matter 
existing  as  we  know  it :  I  have  myself,  at  the  beginning  of  all 
that  I  am  now  writing,  described  how  it  does  thus  exist:  it  is, 
if  we  like  to  call  it  so,  a  succession  of  natural  agents  acting 
according  to  their  various  laws :  it  is  body  or  matter,  if  we  like 
rather  to  call  it  so,  with  its  various  attributes  or  qualities: 
mind,  on  the  other  side  has  its  attributes  or  qualities :  (for  this 
logical  language,  and  it  is  its  great  advantage,  being  kept  in 
mind  as  referring  to  notions  only,  may  be  used  without  imply- 
ing, as  to  the  things  of  which  it  is  used,  any  commensurability 
of  existence  or  possible  co-consideration).  And  the  thing  to  be 
observed  is,  that  the  attributes  of  matter  and  the  attributes  of 
mind  as  thus  understood  are  not  contradistinguished  or  opposed : 
they  are  simply  incongruous  with  each  other.  They  belong, 
in  my  more  ordinary  manner  of  expression,  to  different  worlds. 
Sir  William  Hamilton,  as  in  fact  every  body  else,  allows  and 
teaches  this  abundantly  when  that  is  what  is  before  his  con- 
sideration— strange  that  he  forgets  it  here,  for,  so  far  as   we 


( 


VII.] 


CONSCIOUSNESS   OF   MATTER. 


141 


speak  of  faculties,  this  incongruity  most  thoroughly  shows  that 
the  two  sorts  of  things  must  be  the  object  of  different  ones.  A 
moment's  consideration  will  show  the  reader  that  there  is  no 
meaning  in  memory  being  contradistinguished  from  light,  or 
imagination  from  weight— the  things,  as  I  have  said,  belong  to 
different  worlds. 

I  reserved  the  discussion  of  this  first  part  of  Sir  William 
Hamilton's  proof  till  last  just  to  show  what  the  fact  is  which  he 
misapprehends  and  misdescribes — to  show,  as  I  said  in  other 
words,  what  his  argument  does  prove.  The  knowledge  of  some- 
thing besides  ourself  is,  so  far  as  we  can  judge,  a  necessary 
accompaniment  of  the  knowledge  of  ourself — here  we  may 
speak  of  contradistinction  and  opposition,  and  may  with  reason 
use,  if  we  like  it,  the  word  consciousness  for  the  double  know- 
ledge. But  the  word  consciousness  thus  used,  to  keep  any 
value  or  to  serve  any  use,  must  retain  the  notion  of  the  con- 
tradistinction to  self  which  is  the  point  of  it  when  used  of  this 
non-ego,  and  when  we  come,  by  sense,  perception,  or  however 
we  may  call  it,  to  develope  this  non-ego  into  the  phenomenal 
universe  or  matter,  and  come  thus  to  a  set  of  things  or  qualities 
entirely  incongruous  with  the  facts  of  mind  of  which  we  are 
conscious — then,  if  we  choose  still  to  apply  the  word  conscious- 
ness to  our  knowledge  of  them,  we  simply  destroy  all  value  in 
the  word,  and  can  conclude  nothing  from  it. 

If  the  reader  will  turn  back  to  a  previous  passage*  of  Sir 
William  Hamilton's,  where  he  is  showing  how  consciousness  is 
a  discrimination,  and  examine  it,  I  hope  it  may  help  his 
understanding  what  I  am  saying.  Sir  William  Hamilton 
speaks  of  three  discriminations:  between  self  and  not  self: 
between  one  state  of  mind  and  another:  between  one  external 
object  and  another.  In  these  three  ways  consciousness  discri- 
minates. The  distinction  therefore  between  mind  and  matter 
is  considered,  I  presume,  identical  with  that  between  self  and 
not-self.  This  is  in  harmony  with  all  that  I  have  been  noting 
in  Sir  William  Hamilton:  I  call  attention  to  it* as  just  the  wrong 
psychology,  or  the  misapplication  of  phenomenalism,  which  I 
wish  to  condemn.  As  I  have  no  objection  to  our  speaking  of  con- 
sciousness of  matter,  so  I  have  no  objection  to  our  speaking  of 

» 

1  Vol.  I.  p.  203. 


■s^ 


I 


142 


SIR  WILLIAM    HAMILTON — 


[chap. 


a  self  distinguished  from  external  or  spatial  objects :  this  is  what 
I  called  our  phenomenal  or  corporeal  self:  only  let  us  then  remem- 
ber that  our  starting  point  is  matter,  and  no  more  expect  pheno- 
menal knowledge  of  thoughts  and  feelings,  than  in  the  other  case 
we  expected  conscious  knowledge  of  weight,  light,  and  oxygen. 

In  commenting,  a  short  time  back,  on  the  expression  'almost 
equal  assurance',  I  alluded  to  Sir  William  Hamilton's  opinion ^ 
that  on  the  doctrine  which  we  have  been  treating  of  he  has 
with  him  the  universal  voice  of  mankind,  and  against  him  the 
almost  universal  voice  of  philosophers.     This  I  think  of  little 
consequence  either  way,  on  account  of  the  exceeding  difficulty, 
as  it  seems  to  me,  of  ascertaining  what,  on  a  point  of  philosophy 
of  this  kind,  is  the  common  voice  either  of  mankind  or  of  phi- 
losophers.    I  will  however  notice  it  now  for  two  reasons :  first, 
because,  as  I  have  already  slightly  noticed,  the  assertion  that 
the  opinion  in  question  is  thus  the  common  opinion  of  mankind 
throws,  in  my  view,  a  little  suspicion  upon  the  assertion  that 
it  is  a  fact  of  consciousness — suspicion,  lest  really  this  latter 
should  mean  no  more  than  the  former,  in  which  case  it  is  liable 
of  course  to  the  same  doubt  as  the  former,  in  reference  to  what 
the  opinion  of  mankind  really  is.   Sir  William  Hamilton  changes 
Reid's  expression  'common  sense'  into  his  own  'consciousness': 
but  a  passage  like  the  following  leads  one  to  doubt  whether 
what  he  points  to  is  after  all  much  more  than  popular  opinion : 
"The   fact   that   consciousness   does  testify  to  an  immediate 
knowledge  by  mind  of  an  object  different  from  any  modifica- 
tion of  its  own,  is  thus  admitted  even  by  those  philosophers 
"  who  still  do  not  hesitate  to  deny  the  truth  of  the  testimony : 
"  for  to  say  that  all  men  do  naturally  believe  in  such  a  know- 
"  ledge,  is  only,  in  other  words,  to  say  that  they  believe  it  on 
"  the  authority  of  consciousness.     A  fact  of  consciousness,  and  a 
"  fact  of  the  common  sense  of  mankind,  are  only  various  expres- 
"  sions  of  the  same  import.     We  may  therefore  lay  it  down  as 
"an  undisputed  fact,  that  consciousness  gives,  as  an  ultimate 

^  Passages  in  which  Sir  William  Hamilton  expresses  the  above-mentioned  opi- 
nion are  numerous :  as  Vol.  i.  p.  223,  "  Dr  Reid  vindicated  against  the  unanimous 
authority  of  philosophers,  the  universal  opinion  of  mankind."  Again,  Reid  and 
Stewart,  Vol.  I.  p.  204,  "hold  with  mankind  at  large,  that  we  do  possess  an  im- 
mediate knowledge  of  something  diflferent  from  the  knowing  self."  See  also  Vol.  I. 
p.  278,  and  in  fact  passim. 


{t 


ft 


Til.] 


CONSCIOUSNESS   OF    MATTER. 


143 


"fact,  a  primitive  duality^".  This  is  another  manner  of  proof, 
so  to  call  it,  of  Sir  William  Hamilton's  doctrine,  from  that 
which  we  have  considered. 

I  am  not  fond  of  discussing  whether  a  thing  is  or  is  not  a 
fact  of  consciousness,  because  the  principles  upon  which  the 
dispute  is  to  be  settled  are  not  very  clear.  If  we  appeal  to 
what  is  felt,  feeling  is  individual :  we  can  only  very  imperfectly 
compare  one  man's  with  another's :  but  if  we  try  to  cure  this 
defect  by  massing  individuals  together,  we  get  rather,  it  seems 
to  me,  out  of  the  region  of  philosophy.  I  must  confess  to 
caring  not  much  what,  on  questions  of  this  nature,  men  in 
general  or  masses  of  men  think  or  are  said  to  think.  Not  but 
that,  if  I  knew  that  they  thought  and  knew  really  what  they 
thought,  I  should  prize  (speaking  generally)  the  opinion  of 
any  one  of  them  as  much  as  my  own,  and  their  collective 
opinion  much  more  :  but  I  do  not  know  these  things,  and  I  do 
not  see  how  I  am  to  know  them :  whereas  I  do  know  what  I 
think  myself,  and  know  probably  also  (if  I  am  a  philosopher) 
that  I  have  taken  some  pains  to  think,  if  I  can,  correctly.  By 
philosophy,  as  the  analysis  of  consciousness,  I  do  not  mean  a 
report  and  record  of  the  popular  opinions  of  mankind. 

The  second  reason  why  I  notice  Sir  William  Hamilton*s 
saying  that  the  common  or  universal  opinion  of  mankind  is  on 
his  side,  is  because  I  cannot  the  least  understand  the  use  of  his 
saying  so  when  he  has  got  so  shortly  afterwards,  in  order  for 
his  view  to  hold,  to  use  the  extraordinary  language  about  what 
it  is  that  we  perceive  which  I  have  in  a  former  chapter  alluded 
to''',  and  of  which  I  will  now  give  a  specimen. 

"The  report  of  consciousness",  he  says,  "is  that  we  perceive 
"at  the  external  point  of  sensation,  and  that  we  perceive  the 
"material  reality®". 

The  word  'perceive',  in  the  former  part  of  the  sentence, 
has  in  it  exactly  that  confusion  between  physiology  and  phi- 
losophy which  is  what  I  want  to  prevent,  spoiling  as  it  does 
both.  But  I  will  not  repeat  my  own  often  given  view  as  to 
what  takes  place.  Only  how  does  'consciousness'  report  as  it 
is  here  said  to  do ?  "The  too  ordinary  style  of  philosophising", 
says  Sir  William  Hamilton  in  speaking  of  Dr  Thomas  Brown, 


»  Vol.  I.  p.  291. 


«  Page  89. 


^  Vol.  II.  p.  129. 


I 


'.'■ 


il 


I 


144 


SIR   WILLIAM   HAMILTON — 


[chap. 


"is  an  easy  way  of  appealing  to  or  overlooking  the  facts  of 
**  consciousness,  as  the  philosopher  finds  them  convenient  or 
"inconvenient  for  his  purpose^".  It  is  in  the  hope  that  the  pre- 
sent generation  of  students  of  philosophy,  who  are  likely  to 
learn  so  much  from  Sir  William  Hamilton,  will  not  learn  from 
him  their  tone  of  speaking  about  other  philosophers,  that  I 
notice  how  thoroughly,  if  philosophers  will  not  give  each  other 
credit  for  a  real  love  of  truth,  this  same  language  may  be  used 
of  any,  and  of  himself. 

But  the  matter  of  importance  is  the  second  part  of  the 
sentence.   What  is  meant  by  'perceiving  the  material  reality'? 

"In  the  first  place",  we  are  told,  "it  does  not  mean  that  we 
"  perceive  the  material  reality  absolutely  and  in  itself,  that  is, 
"  out  of  relation  to  our  organs  and  faculties  :  on  the  contrary, 
"  the  total  and  real  object  of  perception,  is  the  external  object 
"under  relation  to  our  sense  and  faculty  of  cognition". 

Have  we  not  here  even  enough  to  make  the  appeal  to  the 
common  voice  of  mankind  nugatory  and  unmeaning,  for  what 
does  that  voice  know  about  this  notionalism  of  the  absolute 
and  the  relative,  in  which  Sir  William  Hamilton  qualifies  his 
statement  into  what  Mr  Ferrier,  or  I,  or  almost  any  body  might 
accept,  supposing  only  we  acknowledged  meaning  in  it  ?  The 
common  voice  of  mankind,  so  far  as  it  says  anything,  says.  We 
perceive  the  thing:  the  thing  is  what  we  perceive:  this  common 
voice  would  surely  say  to  Sir  William  Hamilton  here,  You  mean 
then,  we  do  not  see  the  thing  after  all  ? 

But  the  common  voice,  or  feeling,  of  mankind  must  be  still 
more  shocked  with  the  answer  to  the  next  question. 

"In  the  second  place,  what  is  meant  by  the  external 
"object  perceived?  Nothing  can  be  conceived  more  ridiculous 
"  than  the  opinion  of  philosophers  in  regard  to  this.  For  ex- 
ample, it  has  been  curiously  held,  (and  Reid  is  no  exception), 
that  in  looking  at  the  sun,  moon,  or  any  other  object  of  sight, 
"  we  are,  on  the  one  doctrine,  actually  conscious  of  these  distant 
"objects;  or,  on  the  other,  that  these  distant  objects  are  those 
"  really  represented  in  the  mind.  Nothing  can  be  more  absurd : 
"  we  perceive,  through  no  sense,  aught  external  but  what  is  in 
immediate  relation  and  in  immediate  contact  with  its  organ; 

*  VoL  I.  p.  278. 


ti 


« 


(( 


VII.] 


CONSCIOUSNESS   OP    MATTER. 


145 


"  and  that  is  true  which  Democritus  of  old  asserted,  that  all  our 
"  senses  are  only  modifications  of  touch.  Through  the  eye  we 
"  perceive  nothing  but  the  rays  of  light  in  relation  to,  and  in 
"  contact  with,  the  retina". 

If  anything  was  wanted  to  justify  my  saying  that  there  is 
really  no  use  in  appealing  to  the  common  voice  either  of  man- 
kind or  of  philosophers,  surely  this  extraordinary  passage  would 
do  so.    Did  any  language  ever,  if  we  may  take  that  as  a  specimen 
of  human  opinion,  talk  about  perceiving  'rays  of  light*,  and  iiot 
the  sun  or  the  tree  which  they  proceed  from?    Common  opinion 
is  asked.  Do  we  perceive  immediately,  and  what  do  we  per- 
ceive ?    It  answers,  we  do  perceive  immediately,  and  we  per- 
ceive the  tree,  sun,  &c.     I  might  doubt  as  to  the  answer  which 
it  would  give  to  the  former  part  of  the  questioD,  but  no  one 
could   doubt   as  to    the  answer  to   the  latter.     Sir  William 
Hamilton  then,  who  made  just  now  the  observation  as  to  Dr 
Thomas  Brown  which  I   quoted,  answers  common  opinion,  I 
will  accept  you  as  representing  human   consciousness   so  far 
as  the  former  part  of  your  answer  goes,  but  cannot  as  to  the 
latter.     And  common  opinion,  it  would  appear,  Sir  William 
Hamilton's  self- chosen  referee,  considers  that  we  perceive  im- 
mediately something  which,  in  his  view,  it  is  impossible  that  we 
should  be  conscious  of,  namely  distant  objects  like  the  tree  or 
the  sun :  going,  it  would  appear  to  me,  to  prove,  that  though 
we  perceive  the  external  world  as  it  understands  perceiving,  we 
are  not  conscious  of  it.     I  am  myself  indeed  quite  unable  to 
appreciate  the  greater  philosophical  difficulty  of  saying,  *  we  are 
conscious  of  the  sun',  than  of  saying  *we  are  conscious  of  the 
rays  of  light'.     We  are  told  that  it  was  ridiculous  in  the  phi- 
losophers who  held  representation  to  say  that  distant  objects 
like  the  sun  were  represented  in  the  mind — would  he  have 
had  them  say,  as  less  ridiculous,  that. the  rays  of  light  were  re- 
presented in  the  mind?    But  it  is  hopeless  to  make  anything 
of  all  this,  and  the  philosophical  reasoning  which  follows,  and 
to  which  I  refer  the  reader,  is  as  hopeless.      We  have  seen 
sufficiently  then,  I  think,  how  Sir  William  Hamilton  really 
deals  with  the  common  voice  of  mankind. 

But  I  have  said  for  the  present  enough  upon  this  subject. 


10 


I 

1 


t 


'  1 


X" 


CHAPTER   VIII. 

LOGIC— MR  MILL. 

I  WILL  vary  the  somewhat  monotonous  course  of  what  I  am 
now  writing  by  a  very  little  philosophical  reminiscence. 

The  idealism,  personalism,  or  whatever  it  may  be  called, 
which  lies  at  the  root  of  all  that  I  have  said,  is  not  simply  a 
doctrine  or  opinion,  but  seems  to  me  to  have  been  my  earliest 
philosophical  feeling,  and  to  have  continued,  if  not  so  vivid,  yet 
not  less  strong,  ever  since.  Experience  in  these  things  is  all 
individual,  but  what  from  my  own,  I  should  guess,  is,  that  that 
phenomenalism  which  seems  to  us  to  be  everything,  that  world 
which  is  too  much  with  us,  that  nature  or  universe  into  which, 
as  time  goes  on,  we  seem  to  sink  all  our  independent  selfhood 
so  as  to  be  only  parts  of  it,  the  highest  animals  in  it,  is  some- 
thing in  a  manner  which  we  require  to  get  used  to :  and  that 
before  this  famiharity  is  complete,  in  earlier  years,  there  is  a 
disposition  in  us  to  be  struck  with  what  I  may  call  our  personal 
or  conscious  difference  from  it,  or  independence  of  it,  or  how- 
ever else  we  may  style  the  individual  feeling:  this  is  what  is 
with  me  the  root  of  philosophy :  in  respect  of  the  problems,  or 
difficulties,  or  as  some  please  to  call  them  mysteries  of  philo- 
sophy, I  think  that  one  reason  why  they  have  this  character  is 
on  account  of  a  kind  of  dullness  which  is  superinduced,  over 
our  disposition  to  higher  thought  by  what  the  course  of  every- 
\  body's  life  is  pretty  certain  to  be.  We  get  then  the  notion  of 
philosophy  as  something  only  to  be  learnt  with  infinite  labour, 
as  indeed  is  the  case  when  all  this  familiarity  with  life,  and 
nature,  and  the  phenomenal  universe  has  supervened — but  we 
have  had  it  near  to  us,  and  still  all  this  labour  would  be  of 
little  value  except  there  comes  now  and  then  a  glance  of  insight, 
which  is  the  real  philosophy. 


CHAP.  VIII.] 


LOGIC — MR   MILL. 


147 


I  suppose  there  Is  more  of  what  may  be  called  personal  or 
individual  philosophy  in  the  world  than  one  readily  hears  of, 
but  it  is  not  a  thing  which  seems  much  in  people's  mind  that 
any  real  philosophy  (or  metaphysics,  other  than  mere  talk)  is 
something  that  they  must  see  for  themselves,  and  that  they 
must  value  any  chance  or  early  glimpses  they  may  get  about  it, 
because  the  course  of  life  and  study  will  in  many  respects  make 
it  more  difficult  for  them  to  get  such. 

Corresponding  with  the  feeling,  from  early  times,  of  the 
deep  interest  of  personal  consciousness,  has  been  to  me  the 
feeling  which  I  have  alluded  to  already  *,  of  the  dreariness,  as  I 
have  called  it,  of  the  phenomenalist  view,  or  knowledge  as  ot 
experience,  taken  to  represent  everything  for  us.  I  will  not 
repeat  what  I  have  said  about  that. 

In  a  similar  manner,  my  condemnation  in  these  'rough 
notes'  of  what  I  have  called  'notionalism'  is  not  an  opinion 
simply  produced  in  me  by  the  sight  of  what  seems  to  me  a 
wrong  philosophy,  but  represents  much  effort  in  thinking  what, 
as  to  these  logical  conceptions,  is  the  truth.  A  belief  in  a  real 
substance,  or  thing  in  itself,  is  what  I  have  always  had,  and 
have  most  strongly :  but  it  is  this  very  belief  which  makes  me 
revolt  against  the  philosophy  which  would  disjoin  from  the  sub- 
stance or  reality  of  the  thing  every  thing,  it  appears  to  me, 
which  we  do  or  can  come  to  know  about  it :  it  is  the  assigning 
a  character  of  unknowableness  to  the  substance  which  is  repug- 
nant to  me.  So  long  as  our  knowledge  is  imperfect,  which  in 
fact  all  knowledge  of  eveiy  being  (One  Being  only  excepted) 
must  be,  we  must  suppose  complete  knowledge,  to  fasten  our 
incomplete  knowledge  on :  and  the  complete  knowledge  thus 
supposed  includes  of  course  a  portion  of  ignorance,  or  unknown. 
But  of  the  unknown  there  is  no  reason  for  us  to  suppose  either 
that  it  is  unknowable,  or  that  it  is  (necessarily)  more  important 
to  the  thinghood  of  the  thing  about  which  the  knowledge  is 
than  the  qualities  which  we  do  know  about  it. 

There  is  without  doubt  a  sense  in  which  we  may  say  that 
knowledge  itself  is  impossible — complete  knowledge  necessarily 
is,  and  in  various  points  of  view  complete  knowledge  and  know- 
ledge are  the  same.     In  knowledge  of  thought,  we  suppose  a 

*  Ante,  p.  15. 

10—2 


11 


(' 


(  I 


I 


t 


148 


LOGIC — MR   MILL. 


[chap. 


subject  or  a  substance,  and  knowledge  is  the  filling  this  up  with 
its  appropriate  predicates  or  attributes.  In  knowledge  of 
acquaintance,  our  attributes  and  those  of  the  thing  communi- 
cate: but  there  is  not  proper  knowledge  except  so  far  as  we, 
consciousness,  thought,  comes  into  play:  there  must  be,  for 
knowledge,  something  in  the  thing  with  which  this  can  come  into 
communication — is  there?  the  thinghood  of  the  thing,  thus, 
looking  at  the  matter  this  way,  is  the  thought  locked  up  in  it, 
which  by  the  key  of  our  sensive  power,  fitting  its  sensible  qua- 
lities, we  try  to  open.  But  in  either  of  the  cases  it  may  be 
said,  do  we  ever  arrive  at  knowledge?  Can  we  ever,  in  the 
former  case,  convert  our  supposition  into  anything  which  we 
can  consider  as  more  than  supposition,  and  can  we  ever,  in  the 
latter  case,  get  at  any  thought  in  the  thing  in  regard  of  which 
we  may  consider  that  it  is  more  than  imagination  on  our  part 
about  it?  It  appears  to  me,  that  what  is  to  be  said  about  this 
is  that  which  I  hold  strongly,  that  while  there  are  two  views, 
there  are  not  two  parts,  of  knowledge,  and  consequently,  that  it 
is  not  knowledge,  or  any  one  kind  of  knowledge,  which  we 
cannot  get  at,  but  complete  knowledge:  the  knowledge  of  the 
thought  locked  up  in  a  thing  is  not  generically  different  from  the 
knowledge  of  its  sensible  qualities,  which  are  all  portions  of  its 
thought  or  thinghood :  in  the  same  way  substance  is  not  differ- 
ent from  the  qualities,  and  we  attain  towards  the  knowledge  of 
it  as  we  fill  up  the  knowledge  of  the  qualities.  Knowledge  is 
thus  a  reality,  though  either  of  the  two  manners  of  knowledge 
may  be  described  in  such  a  manner  as  apparently  not  to  con- 
stitute it:  the  mere  rubbing  ourselves  against  fact  (which,  con- 
cisely put,  is  the  view  which  some  have  of  experience)  is  not 
knowledge,  nor  on  the  other  hand,  is  the  imaginatively  sup- 
posing what  after  all  may  be  chimera:  learning,  or  the  action 
of  the  mind  in  gaining  knowledge,  is  by  these  two  processes  in 
conjunction,  but  knowledge  does  not  consist  of  an  union  of  the 
two,  which  would  be  incongruous,  but  of  a  something  between 
the  two,  which  may  be  conceived  arrived  at  either  way,  and  to 
which  we  may  approximate,  and  really  approximate,  each  way. 
As  we  learn,  thought  and  fact  may  be  said  roughly  to  cor- 
rect each  other:  but  it  is  incongruous  to  describe  knowledge 
either  as  thought  corrected  by  fact  (as  something  different  from 


VIII.] 


LOGIC — MR   MILL. 


149 


thought),  or  as  fact  converting  itself,  in  the  mind,  into  thought 
(as  something  different  from  fact).  We  may  describe  it  as  right 
thought,  and  then  what  such  thought  presents  to  us  we  caU 
fact:  or  we  may  describe  it  as  communication  with  fact,  and 
then,  supplementing  something,  which  in  this,  the  incomplete 
view,  we  must,  we  may  suppose  the  communication  accompanied 
on  our  part  by  feeling.  In  the  former  case  we  have  the  know- 
ledge given  us,  with  difficulty  as  to  knowing  its  truth:  in  the 
latter  case  we  have  something  given  which  so  far  as  it  is  know- 
ledge, must  be  true,  but  is  it  knowledge^? 

I  seem  unable  however  to  keep  the  thread  of  philosophical 
reminiscence,  and  will  only  mention  one  more  particular,  which 
is  in  fact  the  occasion  of  my  having  alluded  to  the  subject  here. 

With  respect  to  the  psychology  which  I  have  rather  strongly 
criticised,  from  my  very  first  study  of  it  I  have  felt,  though 
indistinctly,  the  difficulty  about  it;  what  it  was  that  it  aimed 
at,  or  what  it  could  result  in.  The  sort .  of  bewilderment  or 
puzzle  which  Berkeley's  views  produce  in  many  has  always  ap- 
peared to  me  to  belong  to  the  whole  of  this  psychology.     I 


X 


^  One  of  the  many  possible  ways  in  which  the  distinction  between  the  two 
■views  of  knowledge  may  be  put,  and  of  which  I  give,  for  illustration,  as  many  as 
suggest  themselves  to  me,  is  this :  suppose  a  mirror  reflecting  the  universe :  and 
then  make  in  succession  the  two  suppositions,  first,  of  the  mirror  simply  feeUng 
the  reflection,  or  image,  if  we  may  use  such  language,  i.  e.  of  there  being  feeling  in 
it,  we  cannot  tell  more,  varying  with  the  variations  of  the  image :  next,  of  an  eye 
more  or  less  identified  with  the  mirror  seeing  the  image.  We  have  here  roughly 
the  two  views  of  knowledge.  In  the  firat,  the  pommunication,  that  is,  the  reflection 
of  the  universe  in  the  mirror,  is  a  fact,  there  is  no  question  as  to  mistake  or  error 
in  it,  in  its  own  way :  but  it  is  not  knowledge  :  for  knowledge  we  must  suppose  an 
accompanying  sensation,  and  as  to  the  relation  of  such  sensation  to  the  image,  or 
whether  it  is  possible  for  it  to  have  any  relation  to  it,  we  cannot  say  anything  at 
all.  That  is,  with  knowledge  begins  fallibility  or  uncertainty.  In  the  second  case, 
we  have  only  the  depreciated  mediate  or  indirect  knowledge  :  but  it  is  knowledge 
from  the  first,  it  begins  with  thought ;  possibility  of  mistake,  the  test  of  knowledge  ' 
as  distinct  from  mere  familiarity  f^nd  habit,  is  in  it  from  the  first ;  there  is  activity 
from  the  first,  or  knowing  what  we  are  about.  Not  to  dwell  on  this,  I  will  just 
observe  :  these  two  views  of  knowledge  cannot  be  put  together.  We  are  sentient 
mirrors  in  the  one  view,  in  the  other  we  are  contemplators  of  the  imiverse  as  it  is 
in  our  consciousness ;  but  we  are  not  contemplators  of  our  sentience,  because  the 
two  things  are  the  same,  put  different  ways.  The  supposed  eye  sees  the  image, 
not  the  supposedly  coincident  sensation.  In  the  same  way  it  would  be  unreason- 
able to  say  that  part  of  the  image  is  seen,  and  part  felt. 


\  i 


i 


li 


ill  I 


*!! 


i' 


150 


LOGIC — MR   MILL. 


[chap. 


never  could  understand  how,  if  we  took  for  granted,  as  we  all 
naturally  do,  that  we  were  members  of  a  spatial  universe  with 
things  round  about  us,  it  ever  could  be  considered  a  question 
whether  things  really  existed,  or  how  there  could  be  any 
meaning  in  giving  an  account  (as  by  means  of  'Common  Sense') 
of  our  supposition  of  their  existence.  The  whole  psychology 
begins  with  human  beings  knowing  that  they  are  members  of  a 
spatial  world,  and  then,  as  an  important  defence  against  scepti- 
cism, it  is  established  upon  this  basis  that  they  believe  (say  on 
principles  of  common  sense)  that  they  are  so.  What  is  their 
actual  state  of  mind  on  the  subject  seems  in  this  way  hard  to 
tell.  I  have  always  had  a  strong  faith  in  philosophy  and 
thought,  and  have  believed  that  the  former  existed  for  a  better 
purpose  than  to  make  itself  a  reductio  ad  absurdum  by  return- 
ing upon  its  postulate  and  invalidating  it.  The  uneasy  state 
of  one's  logical  feelings  thus  produced  is  likely  to  concentrate 
thought  more  strongly  upon  personality  or  consciousness  as  the 
real  starting-point,  in  distinction  from  which  the  phenomenal 
point  of  view  is  an  assumed  one  for  certain  purposes,  so  that 
in  the  establishing  that  it  does  not  hold  for  others  there  is  no- 
thing at  all  surprising. 

It  would  be  an  interesting  subject  to  consider  how  philo- 
sophers have  got  into  what  seems  to  me  this  singular  position, 
but  I  will  not  follow  that  now,  but  mention  the  point  in  this 
psychology,  a  slight  and  small  one,  which  is  the  immediate  oc- 
casion of  my  introducing  these  experiences. 

The  relation  of  logic  to  the  above  psychology  long  ago 
puzzled  me.  We  are  told  in  the  books  of  psychology  about 
'  perception',  this  is  what  the  logicians  call  '  simple  apprehen- 
sion', without  any  reason  given  why  the  logicians  should  call 
the  same  thing  by  one  name  and  the  psychologists  by  another. 
I  am  inclined  to  think  that  the  different  ways  of  speaking,  all 
in  my  view  meaning  the  same  thing,  coming  some  from  logic 
and  some  from  psychology,  cause  in  the  minds  of  students  a 
great  deal  of  puzzle,  and  in  the  minds  of  philosophers  them- 
selves a  great  deal  of  notionalism,  by  the  converting  different 
accounts  of  the  same  process  into  different  processes. 

I  am  quite  aware  that  the  having,  so  to  speak,  different 
philosophical  sciences,  and  the  yet  mixing  them,  in  some  par- 


h 


vm.] 


LOGIC — MR   MILL. 


161 


ticulars,  together,  is  a  thing  which  has  been  from  the  begin- 
ning, and  certainly  was  in  Aristotle.  But  I  am  sure  it  is 
desirable  as  much  as  possible  to  consider  them  together,  and  as 
one  subject,  or  we  get  into  hopeless  confusion.  When  logic  and 
psychology  are  pursued  each  by  a  different  person,  are  they  the 
same  line  of  thought  in  different  language,  or  are  they  not, 
and  who  is  to  know  ? 

In  Aristotle,  Logic,  Physics,  Metaphysics,  and  Psychology 
all  are  connected  with  each  other,  or  have  common  parts.  But 
Aristotle's  psychology  is  much  more  pure  psychology,  as  I 
should  call  it,  than  the  noo-psychology  which  we  have  been 
speaking  of. 

The  Aristotelian  logic  and  psychology  therefore  confuse 
each  other  very  little.  Logic  is  the  theory  of  thought  and  of 
correctness  of  thought  and  of  advance  of  correct  thought  by 
reasoning,  almost  for  any  kind  of  intelligence,  almost  for  any 
universe.  There  is  assumed  a  subject  of  thought  as  a  peg  to 
hang  predicates  on,  and  in  these  predicates  is  the  knowledge : 
the  subjects,  in  virtue  of  the  predicates  attachable  to  them, 
may  be  put  together  (as  terms)  in  propositions,  and  the  propo- 
sitions again  be  put  together  in  syllogisms  leading  to  further 
propositions.  Correctness  of  thought  is  in  proper  predication, 
in  making  propositions  and  putting  them  together:  advance 
of  thought  is  in  the  fruitfulness  of  such  predication,  making  of 
propositions,  and  putting  them  together,  in  view  of  further  pre- 
dication. 

Right  thought,  and  its  advance,  being  thus  in  right  predi- 
cating, asserting,  and  syllogizing,  what,  to  begin,  is  right  predi- 
cating? 

The  'subject'  is  to  be  supposed  a  something  with  only  one 
character  about  it,  viz.  a  capacity  for  certain  predicates  and  not 
for  others,  and  when  we  have  attached  all  the  right  predicates 
to  it  we  thoroughly  know  it;  when  we  have  attached  any  wrong 
ones  (or  for  which  it  has  not  a  capacity)  we  are  mistaken  about 
it.  How  to  attach  what  predicates  to  what  subject,  Aristotle 
tells  us  nothing :  that  belongs  to  knowledge  of  the  universe : 
but  he  gives  a  rough  list  of  heads  of  predication,  (great  or 
summary  predicates,  predicaments,  categories).  The  predicates 
too  may  attach  to  the  subject  in  different  ways :  he  speaks  of 


i 


I'l 


I 


¥ 


I,  . 


152 


LOGIC — MR   MILL. 


[chap. 


these  to  some  extent,  and  his  successors  catalogued  them :  they 
are  a  sort  of  higher  predicaments  or  categories  still,  'predicables  *. 

In  all  predications  we  assert,  but  when  the  subject  has  had 
any  predicate  attached  to  it,  or  is  at  all  clothed,  it  becomes  not 
only,  in  reference  to  other  predicates,  a  subject,  but  in  reference 
to  the  proposition,  or  assertion,  a  term,  as  does  also  that  which 
in  the  proposition  is  predicated  of  it.  For  rightness  of  asser- 
tion, besides  the  relation  of  subjects  to  their  possible  predicates, 
there  have  to  be  considered  certain  other  relations  of  the  terms 
to  each  other. 

Propositions  put  together  in  certain  ways  bear  fruit  ift  fur- 
ther propositions,  or  predications,  by  which  therefore  our  know- 
ledge of  the  subjects  is  increased  :  and  thus  knowledge  grows. 

Of  the  manner  of  this  gi-owth  of  knowledge  I  have  at 
various  times  spoken.  It  is  as  I  have  said  by  imagination  or 
speculation  about  things  with  constant  self-correction  arising 
mainly  from  our  constant  rubbing  against  things,  as  I  a  short 
time  ago  expressed  it,  which  latter  it  is  that  in  the  main  fixes 
predicates  to  subjects.  The  Aristotelian  scheme  may  be  re- 
garded as  an  exceedingly  abstract  outline  of  a  vast  imagina- 
tion about  things,  with  certain  ways  and  methods  in  which  this 
imagination  may  correct  itself  and  keep  itself  in  order  inde- 
pendently of  this  experience :  still  the  imagination  without  the 
experience  is  entirely  visionary ;  as  the  experience  without  the 
imagination  or  thought  would  be  merely  proximity  or  famili- 
arity— not  knowledge. 

As  I  have  said,  whatever  we  rightly  imagine  we  might  con- 
ceivably have  been  in  contact  with :  whatever  we  are  in  contact 
with  we  might  conceivably  have  pre-imagiued:  there  is  nothing 
generically  different  in  the  object  in  the  two  cases :  the  difiference 
is  in  the  manner  of  our  learning.  We  might  therefore  if  we 
^  liked  it,  call  Aristotle's  list  of  categories  a  sketch  of  the  great 
heads  of  reality  or  fact  in  all,  or  almost  all,  conceivable  uni- 
vei-ses:  the  great  category  of  'quality'  would  I  suppose  be 
the  repository  of  differences,  and  an  universe  in  which  {their) 
matter  had  what  some  would  call  different  secondary  qualities, 
or  in  which  light,  oxygen,  magnetism,  &c.  were  replaced,  if  we 
can  conceive  it,  by  other  elements  or  natural  agents,  would  differ 
from  ours  in  this  category. 


VIII.] 


LOGIC — MR   MILL. 


153 


The  growth  of  knowledge  being,  as  I  mentioned  just  above, 
by  the  speculation  and  experience  joined,  it  is  obvious  that  the 
Aristotelian  proceeding,  running  wholly  on  the  former,  or  on 
the  latter  only  in  so  very  abstract  a  form,  can  be  of  little  conse- 
quence as  to  this.  I  shall  call  a  supposed  method  of  Logic,  of 
any  kind,  which  so  far  incorporates  into  itself  the  notion  of 
actual  experience  as  to  be  able  to  take  into  account  the  growth 
of  knowledge,  whether  in  the  individual  or  the  race,  a  Real 
Logic,  in  contrast  with  such  as  the  Aristotelian,  which  we  may 
call  if  we  like,  when  pure  and  by  itself.  Formal,  and  which  may 
have  various  valuable  applications,  besides  this,  if  we  consider  it 
one :  as  to  verification,  to  grammar,  or  to  digestion  of  argument. 

The  gi'eat  mass  of  '  the  Philosophy  of  the  Human  Mind' 
is  in  its  details  an  attempt  at  a  Real  Logic  of  individual  know- 
ledge ;  an  attempt  vitiated  in  various  ways.  For  this  Real 
Logic  of  the  individual  is  of  more  complicated  and  difficult  con- 
sideration than  the  Real  Logic  of  the  knowledge  of  the  race, 
unless  we  may  say  that  this,  to  counterbalance,  has  difficulties  of 
a  different  kind.  The  greater  difficulty  is  in  this :  that  we  are 
considering  the  growth  of  the  knowledge  of  one  mind  in  the 
midst  of  a  quantity  of  others  where  the  knowledge  exists.  This 
I  believe,  at  bottom,  is  the  origin  of  the  mis-psychological  error 
on  which  I  comment  so  abundantly.  '  A  stone  lies  before  me :  ^ 
I  see  it'.  We  put  this  down  quite  naturally  in  the  account  of 
the  growth  of  individual  knowledge,  not  apparently  thinking 
that  the  first  clause  is  other  people's  knowledge  :  the  second  is 
the  step  of  mine :  and,  now,  that  the  step  is  taken,  I  say  the 
stone  lies  before  me.  Our  collective  Real  Logic,  which  I  shall 
shortly  speak  of,  is  not  to  the  same  extent  puzzled  with  the 
double  view  of  angels  and  superior  beings  of  we  know  not  how 
many  amounts  and  kinds  seeing  the  universe,  and  our  seeing 
it  with  them,  in  the  way  in  which  the  human  race  will  (physi- 
cally) see  it,  we  may  suppose,  some  hundred  centuries  hence, 
should  it  last  so  long,  and  with  this,  of  our  race  coming  step  by 
step  to  see  it  in  this  real  way.  In  respect  of  the  race,  we  can 
understand  and  watch  the  learning,  because  we  cannot  and  do 
not  make  the  vast  and  absurd  supposition  of  all  the  to  be  known 
in  this  way  as  already  existing  fact\ 

1  I  am  not  certain  whether  this  is  put  in  the  best  way,  but  I  leave  it.     On  the 
subject  of  advance  in  perception,  and  advance  in  knowledge  of  nature  beyond 


I  I 


•  r  m 


h: 


ii 


IM 


I 


154 


LOGIC — Mil   MILL. 


[chap. 


The  fact  of  the  one  learning  mind  existing  in  the  middle 
\  of  a  multitude  of  knowing  ones  is  of  importance  in  another  way. 
While  almost  all  books,  I  think,  of  the  philosophy  of  the  Human 
Mind  make,  as  above,  the  already  existing  knowledge  come  in 
where  it  ought  not,  they  do  not  make  it  come  in  where  it 
ought.  The  course  of  individual  knowledge  is  described  not  only 
without  sufficient  reference  to  the  consideration,  how  much, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  we  are  taught  by  others,  but  also  to  the 
more  important  consideration,  that  whether  we  are  actually 
taught  by  others  or  not,  our  intelligence  is  in  its  very  constitu- 
tion social,  and  our  mind  is  the  mind  of  a  social  being,  a  being 
such  as  our  organization  (tongue,  &c.)  shows  us  to  be.  We 
think  of  necessity  socially:  more  socially  perhaps  in  some  soli- 
tude than  in  some  society :  we  think  with  the  minds  of  others 
as  weU  as  our  own:  thought  is  internal  conversation  and  dis- 
cussion. Language,  which  is  social,  goes  to  the  bottom  of  our 
mind :  not  but  that  we  might,  and  perhaps  do,  abundantly  ima- 
gine without  language,  but  that  we  should  not,  without  it,  come 
to  anything  like  the  results  to  which  we  do  come,  and  that 
in  respect  of  some  of  the  earliest  and  simplest  things. 

The  two  sets  of  Lectures  of  Sir  William  Hamilton  which 
have  been  published  are  one  on  Metaphysics,  and  the  other  on 
Logic,  the  two  courses  having  some  introductory  Lectures  in 
common.  The  Lectures  on  Metaphysics  I  have  to  a  certain 
degree  examined,  because,  though  the  subject  is  called  Meta- 
physics, and  the  point  of  view,  the  purpose  assigned  being  the 
analysis  of  consciousness,  is  more  philosophical  than  that  of 
several  of  Sir  William  Hamilton's  Edinburgh  predecessors,  yet 
still  the  subject  is  considered  'the  Philosophy  of  the  Human 
Mind' ;  and  the  confusion  of  the  wrong  psychology  is  abun- 
dantly prevalent.  In  pursuing  his  subject  of  the  Philosophy 
of  the  Human  Mind,  Sir  William  Hamilton  discusses  faculties 
&c.  and  gives  several  new  names,  but  hardly  seems  to  have  said 
anjrthing  very  important. 

What  I  have  criticized  in  those  Lectures  of  Sir  William 
Hamilton  is  his  application  of  the  term  'consciousness'  to  'per- 
ception'. It  may  perhaps  be  remembered,  that  the  point  of 
view  of  the  analysis  of  consciousness  has  been  called  by  me 

what  would  be  commonly  called  perception,  and  their  relation  to  each  other,  I 
shall  have  a  few  things  to  say. 


vul] 


LOGIC — MR   MILL. 


155 


sometimes  the  philosophical  (answering  to  Sir  William  Hamil- 
ton's metaphysical)  and  sometimes  the  logical.  Sir  William 
Hamilton's  error  seems  to  me  to  have  arisen  from  his  having 
before  him  the  psychology  of  his  predecessors,  which  prevented 
him,  as  he  was  so  abundantly  able  to  do  and  one  would  have 
thought  would  have  been  likely  to  do,  taking  the  line  of  philo- 
sophical (not  mis-psychological)  metaphysics  and  logic  in  con- 
junction, going  so  naturally  as  they  would  together.  As  it  is,  I 
imagine  students  ask  themselves  what  his  metaphysics  and 
logic  have  to  do  with  each  other :  they  read,  I  think,  the  former 
more  than  the  latter,  with  some  wonder,  of  the  kind  which  I 
mentioned  before,  how  the  subject  comes  to  be  two.  Locke's 
Essay  on  Human  Understanding  is  Logic  and  Psychology  united : 
most  of  the  Philosophies  of  the  Human  Mind  are  intended  to 
supersede  the  necessity  of  the  Formal  Logic,  and  Dugald  Stew- 
art, whose  memory  Sir  William  Hamilton  cherishes  in  a  manner 
which  does  him  great  honour,  says  of  it  that  its  'inutility  is 
now  pretty  generally  acknowledged,  and  it  deserves  our  atten- 
tion chiefly  as  a  curious  article  in  the  history  of  science':  while 
a  Logic  of  the  kind  which  I  have  called  Real  Logic  he  describes 
as  the  valuable  logic,  though  still  in  its  infancy. 

The  importance  of  all  this  is  of  the  following  kind :  people 
constantly  talk  about  these  different  professedly  philosophical 
subjects  as  if  they  were  like  branches  of  physical  science,  say 
geology  and  botany,  in  regard  of  which  one  man  may  know  and 
value  both,  another  may  know  one  and  honour  the  other  as  a 
co-science,  another  may  know  one  and  think,  or  pretend  to  think, 
the  other  worthless,  and  all  this  be  of  no  consequence  in  respect 
of  his  knowledge  of  what  he  does  know.  But  this  is  not  the 
case  with  these  philosophical  subjects.  They  are  rival  claimants 
more  or  less  for  the  same  ground.  The  thinking  wrongly  about 
their  relation  to  each  other  may  do  damage  in  all  sorts  of  ways. 

Sir  William  Hamilton  speaks,  as  we  have  seen,  of  matter 
being  the  object  of  consciousness.  It  seems  odd  that  he  should 
do  this,  when,  in  a  different  set  of  Lectures,  those  on  Logic,  we 
have  the  real  objects  of  consciousness,  which  he  calls  'concepts', 
treated  truly  and  properly  as  such :  we  seem  to  have  here,  all 
along,  that  difficulty  which  I  spoke  of,  and  the  student  of  Sir 
William  Hamilton's  Lectures  on  Metaphysics  is  astonished  to 


I'lt 


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156 


LOGIC — MR   MILL. 


[chap. 


find  that,  when  he  has  got  through  them,  there  are  two  volumes, 
as  big  as  the  others,  treating  knowledge  and  the  processes  of  the 
human  understanding  in  an  entirely  difiFerent  manner  and  with 
different  language — after  all,  he  asks,  have  I  only  got  half  the 
subject,  and  now  I  know  what  *  perceiving '  things  is  have  I  got 
to  learn  all  about  the  '  forming  concepts '  of  them,  and  is  it  a 
different  thing  or  the  same  ? 

I  have  written  this  (and  shall  now  not  go  further  into  the 
subject)  for  two  reasons:  first,  to  suggest  that  these  things  want 
putting  together — we  want  to  know,  more  than  people  are 
aware  of,  what  different  terms  only  express  the  same  thing  put 
different  ways;  and  secondly,  to  account  for  my  speaking  of 
the  philosophical  and  the  logical  view  as  in  the  main  the  same, 
though  by  the  logical  we  may  often  mean  what,  as  compared 
with  the  other,  is  an  abstraction.  If  Sir  William  Hamilton  had 
put  his  metaphysics  and  his  logic  together,  I  do  not  think  we 
should  have  had  the  same  confusion.  The  'consciousness  of 
matter'  seems  to  me  to  be  a  jumbling  together  of  the  things 
impressing  our  senses  and  our  forming  concepts  or  ideas  of  them, 
which  would  not  have  been  fallen  into  except  that  the  whole 
theory  of  this  forming  concepts  is  made  into  a  separate  subject 
for  a  different  set  of  Lectures. 

I  will  say  no  more  about  the  Formal  Logic  and  the  various 
books  of  interest  and  value  upon  it.  What  I  protest  strongly 
against  is  the  realizing  its  terms  (which  is  what  I  have  called 
notionalism) :  but  I  do  not  at  all  call  in  question  the  great  value 
of  its  language  for  its  proper  purpose.  Its  value  depends  in 
every  way  upon  this  non-realizing,  upon  its  being  kept  formal 
and  abstract.  The  attempt  to  apply  it  too  much  may  very  pos- 
sibly I  think  by  confusing  it  and  realizing  it  in  another  sort  of 
way,  injure  its  value \     But  that  is  not  now  my  business. 

What  I  am  going  to  speak  of  is  the  Real  Logic  of  the  know- 
ledge of  the  human  race,  which  is  at  once  an  important  branch 
of  literature  and  an  important  philosophical  subject,  and  the 
two  books  which  I  have  taken  as  specimens  of  it  are  Mr  Mill's 
and  Dr  Whewell's. 

*  An  exact  appreciation  of  the  real  bearing  and  importance  of  the  extensions  of 
this  Logic  by  Sir  William  Hamilton,  Professor  de  Morgan,  the  late  Professor 
Boole,  Dr  Thomson,  and  others,  would  be  of  very  much  interest. 


VIII.] 


LOGIC— MR   MILL. 


157 


My  concern,  it  will  be  remembered,  is  not  so  much  with  the 
advance  of  knowledge  as  with  the  beginning  of  it:  not  with 
reasoning,  but  with  sensations ;  with  conceiving  and  perceiving. 
But  since  this  latter  process  or  these  processes  take  place  in 
advanced  knowledge,  of  course  I  am  concerned  with  the  ad- 
vance ;  what  I  mean  is  that  I  shall  say  little  about  the  manner 
or  mental  machinery  of  the  advance,  reasoning,  syllogism,  in- 
duction, deduction. 

Mr  Mill's  book  is  what  I  should  call  a  Phenomenalist  Logic 
with  a  starting  point  from  the  Aristotelian  or  Formal  Logic. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  I  described  the  phenomenalist ' 
view,  as  I  called  it,  to  be  an  abstraction,  meaning  this :  that 
when  we  have  got  the  knowledge,  we  may  suppose  the  things 
we  know  to  exist  without  any  reference  to  our  knowing  them  or 
to  the  manner  in  which  we  come  to  know  them:  but  that  in 
reality  the  manner  in  which  we  come  to  know  them  is  by  a 
great  deal  of  imagination,  speculation,  and  action  of  mind. 
However,  when  we  know  them,  we  say  one  of  two  things  of 
them,  both  coming  to  the  same:  either,  *they  exist':  or  'we 
believe  them'.  There  is  a  third  thing  which  we  might  say :  viz. 
*  We  have  learnt  them'.  In  the  first  case  the  understood  men- 
tal accompaniment  is  more  or  less  of  this  nature  :  *  There  they 
are  :  do  you  not  see  them?'  In  the  second,  *  I  can  give  a  reason 
for  my  belief,  if  you  wish  to  hear  it'.  In  the  third,  '  I  have 
thought  about  the  matter  a  good  deal  and  made  many  observa- 
tions, and  this  is  the  result  I  have  come  to'. 

The  view  of  knowledge  which  I  understand  Mr  Mill  to  take 
is  that  which  I  should  call  the  proper  phenomenalist  view,  or 
the  notion  of  'adstance',  'presence  at'  anything  (the  French 
assistance),  which  I  have  already  in  some  degree  alluded  to, 
and  to  which  I  hope  to  return^. 

^  Mr  Mill's  phenomenalist  logic  is  in  eflfect  a  description  of  the  facts  of  nature, 
the  heads  of  this  description  being  suggested  by  the  relations  and  processes  of 
logic,  as  these  have  been  previously  understood.  Our  knowledge  is  then,  in  his 
view,  a  following  or  tracing  in  one  direction  or  another,  a  keeping  close  to,  these 
facts. 

Thus  in  respect  of  propositions,  what  Mr  Mill  considers  is,  that  where  the 
proposition  is  important  for  the  advance  of  knowledge,  what  we  are  doing  in  it  is 
not  the  assertion  of  anything  as  to  the  applicability  of  the  terms  or  names  (which 
is  the  same  thing  as  the  reference  of  things  to  classes),  nor  the  making  a  judgment, 
in  the  sense  that  the  result  of  the  proposition  is  something  in  or  having  reference 


Ki 


m 


(,»■ 


158 


LOGIC — MR   MILL. 


[chap. 


The  special  character  of  this  view  is  the  avoidance  as  much 
as  possible  of  any  reference  to  activity  of  the  mind — the  saying 
but  little,  so  to  speak,  of  *  thought  about  things'.  So  far  as  the 
st^te  of  the  mind  which  possesses  knowledge,  in  face  of  the  facts 
of  nature,  is  to  be  described,  it  is  to  be  described  as  a  state  of 
belief  upon  evidence.  We  are  in  phenomenal  contact,  so  to 
speak,  with  every  thing  that  we  know :  but  this  contact,  in  re- 
gard of  a  great  deal  of  our  knowledge,  is  not  immediate,  distinct, 
recognisable  :  it  is  mediate  through  the  intervention  of  evidence 
on  which  we  believe.  We  believe  that  the  earth  moves  round 
the  sun,  and  can,  if  we  wish,  exhibit  a  scheme  of  the  grounds  of 
our  belief  in  this,  for  examination  as  to  satisfactoriness :  at  the 
same  time  these  grounds  only  represent  a  complicated  and  vast 
contact  of  the  same  nature  as  that  in  virtue  of  which  we  consider 
that  a  tree  before  us  is  green,  or  a  bird  in  front  of  us  is  flying. 

On  this  *  belief  on  evidence',  as  I  am  not  at  this  moment 
going  to  dwell  upon  it,  I  will  just  remark  so  much :  that  the 
evidence  upon  which  we  should  justify  our  belief  is  not  at  all 
likely  to  represent  in  any  way  the  process  by  which  the  know- 
ledge of  it  has  actually  been  come  to  :  that  such  evidence  is  a 
very  vague  term,  and  the  manner  of  its  possible  exhibition, 

to  onr  own  mind  (a  view,  a  cliange  of  view,  a  notion  &c.)  but  the  assisting,  as  it 
were,  the  standing  by  or  looking  on  at,  an  (imagined  or  actual)  natural  fact,  which 
the  temw  of  the  proposition,  indicate.  The  proposition  in  this  phenomenalist 
logic,  is  not  the  reference  by  us  of  a  thing  to  a  class,  nor  is  a  judgment,  or  opi- 
nion, on  our  part,  about  a  thing,  but  is  an  expression  of  a  natural  fact  or  rela- 
tion of  things.  What  is  important  about  the  proposition  is  not  the  goodness  and 
good  employment  of  a  classification  of  things  which  it  may  imply,  nor  the  correctness 
of  thought  on  our  part  which  it  may  imply,  but  its  trueness  to  the  phenomenal  fact. 

The  distinction  between  the  latter  two  of  these  members  is  in  fact  the  dis- 
tinction between  the  l(<gical  (as  I  have  called  it)  and  the  phenomenalist  view. 
The  object  of  the  previous  logic  has  been  correctness  of  thought :  that  of  Mr 
MiU^s  logic  is  true  following  and  rendering  phenomena. 

In  the  distinction  between  the  two  latter  and  the  former  of  these  members, 
disallowing  this,  the  reference  in  the  fii-st  instance  to  classification,  as  the  proper 
business  of  any  logic,  Mr  Mill,  as  I  understand  him,  has  my  hearty  adhesion. 
His  views  as  to  the  subordination  of  the  classification  of  things  to  what  I  will  call 
their  nature,  which  latter,  not  the  former,  our  propositions  in  the  first  instance 
refer  to,  are  important  and  true  for  all  logic  alike.  Reference  of  things  to  classes 
and  the  introducing  in  this  way  quantitative  relation  into  logic  may  be  a  most 
valuable  and  important  subsidiary  thing  to  do,  but  logic  looks  at  things  as 
variously  endued  with  similar  qualities,  and  therefore  as  classifiable,  no^  except 
subsidiarily,  as  already  classified. 


VIII.] 


LOGIC — MR   MILL. 


159 


in  many  cases,  infinitely  various :  that,  in  fact  between  the 
remote,  hidden,  or  complicated  phenomenon  and  human  sense, 
there  are  what  we  may  call  two  threads  of  experience,  contact 
or  communication,  the  one  the  historical  thread  by  which  the 
knowledge  has  been  arrived  at,  the  other  the  thread  of  most 
satisfactory  justification  of  the  belief,  or  nearest  communication 
between  the  sense  and  the  phenomenon  now.  So  much  as  to 
the  relation  of  the  evidence  to  experience  and  sensation. 

Mr  Mill's  purpose,  as  I  understand  it,  is  to  avoid  as  much 
as  possible  what  I  have  called  the  logical  point  of  view  in 
our  simpler  or  more  immediate  knowledge  of  nature,  and  when 
we  come  to  the  more  complicated  and  mediate  knowledge  of  it, 
the  historical  attainment  of  which  by  the  human  race  is  what 
we  call  the  advance  of  science  and  is  the  object  of  Real  Logic, 
to  treat  this  by  what  I  may  call  the  Logic  of  Evidence.  It 
is  the  minor  proposition  in  a  syllogism,  or  that  in  an  argument 
which  most  corresponds  to  such  minor  proposition,  which  con- 
stitutes what  we  should  call  the  evidence  for  the  conclusion — as 
distinct  from  the  principle  of  the  argument,  or  the  considera- 
tions which  give  value  to  the  evidence,  or  the  theory  upon 
which  we  conclude  from  it,  which  vaguely  represent  what  in  a 
regular  syllogism  is  the  major  proposition.  Mr  Mill's  treatment 
of  the  syllogism  seems  to  me  to  go  upon  this  view. 

My  business  here  however  is  very  little  with  reasoning  or 
belief  upon  evidence,  but  with  the  general  view  of  knowledge  : 
and  I  proceed  to  explain  what  I  mean  by  saying  that  in  respect  of 
our  simple  and  more  immediate  knowledge,  Mr  Mill  takes  great 
pains  to  avoid  the  logical  point  of  view :  which  is  in  this  way 
remarkable,  that  he  has  taken  great  pains  to  preserve  the  old 
logical  language,  and  if  I  may  so  speak,  utilize  it.  In  this  I 
sympathize  with  him  much :  but  I  think  it  has  led  him  into 
a  certain  amount  of  error,  which  I  shall  afterwards  notice. 

The  old  logicians  had  then  these  processes,  *  simple  apprehen- 
sion' (perception,  conception),  *  judgment',  and  'reasoning',  and 
one  way  or  another  this  triplicity  must  always  exist.  Thought 
or  language  naturally  divides  itself  into  notions  or  words,  judg- 
ments or  propositions,  and  syllogisms  or  arguments. 

It  is  for  the  two  former  members  of  this  triplicity  that 
Mr  Mill  as  I  said  carefully  avoids  the  logical  point  of  view. 


i 


n 


ii 


'n 


•■  li 


4 


160 


LOGIC — MR   MILL. 


[chap. 


For  instance  I  mean  that  in  regard  of  the  first  member 
of  the  triplicity  he  prefers  not  to  speak  of  notions,  ideas,  con- 
cepts, or  to  use  corresponding  tei-ms,  but  will  take  cognisance 
only  of  things,  which  things  we  express  by  names.  His  care 
in  this  respect  is  more  striking  on  account  of  his  equally  care- 
fully avoiding  all  nominalism,  as  it  was  called,  that  is,  the 
ignoring  more  or  less  the  reasons  why  things  were  collected  as 
they  were  into  classes,  and  had  such  and  such  names  given 
to  them,  and  the  attending  only  to  the  classes  and  names.  Mr 
Mill  sees  more  in  a  thing  than  a  mere  member  of  a  class  and 
object  of  a  name:  he  sees  in  it  the  properties  in  virtue  of 
which  it  is  such  :  but  he  will  not  allow  of  'notion',  ' idea',  'con- 
cept' of  it. 

This,  so  far  as  we  have  gone,  is  what  I  have  called  the  phe- 
nominalist  point  of  departure  in  contradistinction  to  the  logical : 
and  for  the  better  explaining  what  I  say  of  Mr  Mill,  I  will 
just  say  how  /  should  have  proceeded  from  this  point  of  de- 
parture, which  of  itself  is  a  very  legitimate  one. 

I  should  have  asked  the  physical,  chemical,  physiological, 
philosopher  what  it  was  to  the  best  of  his  knowledge  that  the 
universe  was  made  up  of,  and  I  suppose  he  would  have  told  me 
elements,  forces,  tissues,  organizations,  I  know  not  what  more : 
he  and  I  should  both  of  us  have  understood  that  there  must 
be  space  and  time  for  all  these  to  exist  in :  and  though  we 
should  have  in  some  degree  diverged  as  to  what  comes  next, 
yet  we  should  have  gone  some  way  together;  namely,  as  to 
laws,  order,  system,  if  I  may  venture  to  say,  *  idea'. 

Mr  Mill's  first  proceeding  however  with  his  'things'  is  to 
categorize  them.  This  is  a  part  of  what  I  mentioned,  his  care 
to  preserve  the  old  logical  methods  and  language,  while  altering 
their  application  and  utilizing  them. 

I  mentioned  previously  about  the  Aristotelian  categories, 
that  though  they  proceed  from  a  logical  point  of  view,  yet  they 
might  be  turned  round  to  a  sort  of  quasi-phenomenalist  one, 
in  which  view  they  will  represent  the  main  constituents,  so  to 
speak,  of  almost  any  possible  universe.  Mr  Mill  finds,  reason- 
ably enough,  that  they  are  a  very  poor  catalogue  of  the  con- 
stituents of  this  universe,  and  proceeds  to  utilize  the  notion 
by  substituting  others  for  them. 


.1' 


i.ii 


VIII.] 


LOGIC — MR   MILL. 


161 


I  will  make  a  few  remarks  on  what  he  substitutes. 
He  makes  four  categories  of  things :  minds :  bodies :  attri- 
butes of  mind,  viz.  feelings  :  attributes  of  bodies,  of  which  then 
he  makes  sub-categories. 

This  classification  resolves  itself,  for  use,  into  the  two  latter 
heads  (as  I  have  given  them) :  for  minds,  and  bodies  (or  sub- 
stances), are  only  described  as  the  unknown  and  unknowable 
substrata  of  the  feelings  and  the  bodily  attributes  or  qualities: 
the  categories  therefore  of  things  which  are  objects  of  know- 
ledge are  really  to  be  considered  only  two,  with  the  observation 
appended  that  these  objects  of  knowledge  are  not  independent, 
but  involve  in  themselves  (how  can  Mr  Mill  or  anybody  avoid 
saying  in  our  notion  of  them  ?)  a  reference  to  something  un- 
known as  the  substratum  of  them. 

We  are  thus,  at  this  apparently  second  step  of  our  progress, 
only  advanced  as  far  as  to  say  that  the  things  (known  to  us 
are  yet  only  as  nameables)  are  attributes  of  a  substratum,  which, 
in  reality,  was  Aristotle's  first  step,  or  was  the  notion,  itself, 
of  categories. 

In  one  respect  indeed  we  are  further  advanced,  but,  it  seems 
to  me,  wrongly,  or,  at  least,  confusedly. 

Mr  Mill  makes  two  sets  of  attributes  of  two  substrata,  mind 
and  body. 

The  importance  of  this  proceeding  in  Mr  Mill  is  this.  For 
the  whole  of  what  we  may  call  his  actual  logic,  things  are  with 
him  only  the  attributes  of  body  with  their  substratum  (what- 
ever is  to  be  considered  about  this),  and  the  above  classification 
is  of  no  application  at  all.  It  only  receives  application  when 
it  is  considered,  as  Mr  Mill  does  consider  in  the  latter  part  of 
his  book,  that  the  same  logic  which  he  has  exhibited  and  illus- 
trated from  an  examination  of  the  advance  of  phenomenal  know- 
ledge is  applicable  also  to  knowledge  of  the  attributes  of  mind. 
Now  that  it  may  be  possible  to  find  or  exhibit  a  '  real'  logic, 
(as  I  have  used  the  word  real)  applicable  both  to  the  study 
of  mind  and  the  study  of  physical  nature,  I  have  no  wish  to 
deny.  But  I  do  not  admit  the  propriety  of  the  process  of 
settling  such  a  logic  from  observation  of  the  advance  of  physical 
knowledge  (my  'phenomenalism')  and  then  at  once  saying,  All 
this  is  applicable  similarly  to  the  study  of  feelings  or  mind. 

11 


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1(1 


162 


LOGIC — MR  MILL. 


[chap. 


The  relation  which  facts  of  mind,  so  to  call  them,  bear  to  facts 
of  body  is  not  this:  nor  on  this  supposition,  can  we  deal 
properly  with  the  great  fact  of  mind,  human  liberty. 

As  the  apparent  purpose  of  this  classification,  in  my  view, 
involves  errors,  so  the  classification  itself  involves  some  curious 
danger  of  confusion.     Mr  Mill  sees  well,  and  has  expressed  in 
language  which  leaves  nothing  to  be  desired  for  clearness,  the 
difference  between  feelings  (or  sensations)  and  physical  fact  or 
relations  of  any  kind.     He  also  says  as  distinctly  as  I  or  any 
one  taking  my  view  could  say  it,  that,  nevertheless,  in  the  last 
analysis,  all  physical  fact  or  relation  is  in  fact  our  feeling  of 
such  fact  or  relation :  this,  our  feeling  or  sensation,  is  what  we 
come  to  in  the  last  resort  as  to  all.     But  yet  again,  in  another 
place,  he  says,  in  effect  ^  that  it  is  conceivable  that  further 
physiological   knowledge  may  resolve   all   our  feeling,   as  we 
call  it,  into  a  sort  of  refined  physical  fact:  into  a  delicate  and 
special  kind   of  physical   relation.     The   complication  here  is 
great.     There  is  a  circularity  which  seems  almost  to  result  in 
nihilism:  for  if  physical  fact  is  at  the  bottom  only  a  manner  of 
describing  our  feeling,  and  yet  again  this  our  feeling  is  or  may 
be  a  refined  kind  of  physical  fact,  we  seem  to  revolve  endlessly 
without  any  logical  standing  for  our   feet.     In   fact,   Mr  Mill 
seems  to  try  to  take  at  once  two  positions  which,  in  my  view, 
can  only  be  taken  separately ;  we  may  choose  which  we  will 
take,  and  there  is  one  of  the  two  which  may  be  so  taken  as  to 
embrace  the  other.    But  Mr  Mill's  view  seems  to  me  to  puzzle 
phenomenalism  as  much  as  to  annihilate  the  higher  philosophy. 
The  phenomenalist  will,  I  conclude,  say  with  Mr  Mill,  that  as 
he  looks  upon  physical  science,  it  is  within  its  purview,  it  is 
what  he  hopes  will  one  day  be  accomplished,  that  mental  facts, 
as  he  would  call  them,  one  such  fact  being  what  we  call  our 
consciousness  of  personality,  should  be  recognized  and  under- 
stood as  one  kind  of  affections  or  circumstances  of  the  orga- 
nism, and  nothing  more,  in  the  same  ways  as  its  size,  colour, 
form,  are  another  kind  of  circumstances  of  it.     But  I  do  not 
think  such  a  person  would  be  inclined  to  say  with  Mr  Mill  that 
the  qualities  of  matter  are  after  all  only  our  feelings  of  some- 
thing.    The  phenomenalist's  test  of  reality  is  not  our  feeling 

"^  Noticed  afterwards,  p.  197. 


k'i.i' 


VIII.  ] 


LOGIC — MR   MILL. 


163 


about  anything,  but  things  or  elements  as  he  understands  them 
— what  I  have  before  called  '  natural  agents',  for  instance.  And 
conversely  the  logician  or  philosopher  who  really  looks  upon 
the  ultimate  test  of  reality,  for  us,  as  being  our  consciousness, 
is,  in  truth,  precluded  by  his  initial  view  (and  this,  as  I  shall 
have  to  say  more  fully,  is  what  it  seems  to  me  philosophers  too 
much  forget)  from  allowing  the  possibility  that  this  conscious- 
ness can,  by  any  process,  be  proved  to  be  only  a  circumstance 
or  relation  of  matter.  It  stands  to  him  as  his  basis  for  every- 
thing else  that  he  knows,  and  therefore,  whatever  may  be 
proved  from  this  so  as  that  he  knows  it,  the  utmost  is  that  he 
must  hold  it  in  accompaniment  with  that  his  original  thought  or 
basis.  On  this  view  it  can  never  be  the  feeling  itself,  but  only 
something  about  the  feeling,  which  on  any  supposition  of  pheno- 
menalism, can  be  shown  to  be  a  circumstance  of  matter. 

It  seems  to  me  then  that  the  manner  in  which  Mr  Mill  tries 
to  put  mind  and  its  feelings  by  the  side  of  body  and  its  attri- 
butes is  not  successful.  It  was  open  to  him  to  take  the  phe- 
nomenalist view,  to  understand  by  '  things '  body  and  its  attri- 
butes, to  take  as  ultimate  realities  chemical  elements  or  primaiy 
forces,  to  trace  the  logic  of  our  knowing  them  and  all  about 
them  (supposing  it  possible),  and  to  consider  it  conceivable  that 
future  physiology  might  possibly  bring  into  relation  with  them 
the  as  yet  incommensurable  or  un assimilated  matter,  not  yet 
things  for  this  view,  which  we  call  'consciousness',  'feelings'. 
This  view  would  have  had  its  truth  as  what  I  have  called  an 
abstraction.  Or  it  was  open  to  him  to  take  the  other  view, 
which,  made  a  co-abstraction  with  this,  is  the  'logical',  and, 
carried  out,  is  the  view  of  the  higher  truth  and  philosophy:  to 
this  belongs  the  saying  that  things  (bodies  and  their  attributes) 
are  really  to  us  what  we  think  and  know  to  be  things.  But 
w^e  have  no  right  to  bring  in  mind  and  feelings  as  matter  of  our 
knowledge,  except  upon  this  view.  Where  they  enter,  they 
must  take  precedence  of  phenomenalism,  and  be  presupposed 
to  it,  not  be  put  by  the  side  of  it,  subjected  to  a  logic  derived 
from  it,  and  considered  as  what  may  conceivably  be  reduced  to 
it.  This  last  is  what  Mr  Mill  has  done,  I  think  wrongly,  and  in 
spite  of  his  concurrent  and  correct  view  of  the  real  precedency  of 

consciousness. 

11—2 


I] 


i 


164 


LOGIC — MR   MILL. 


[chap. 


The  important  point  is  the  putting  '  mind  and  its  attributes  * 
as  a  part  of  the  '  things  in  the  universe '  by  the  side  of  '  body 
and  its  attributes'.  I  have  alluded  to  this  already  by  anticipa- 
tion in  speaking  of  the  partly  similar,  partly  opposite,  proceed- 
ing of  Sir  William  Hamilton,  in  putting  '  matter  and  its  attri- 
butes' if  we  may  so  speak  as  a  part  of  '  consciousness '  by  the 
side  of  *  mind  and  its  attributes'.  It  is  what  I  shall  continually 
refer  to,  as  constituting  the  great  groundwork  of  my  differences 

with  Mr  Mill. 

I  acknowledge  that  there  is  a  difficulty  before  Mr  Mill  here, 
and  that  there  are  reasons  why,  for  his  purpose,  it  is  better 
that  things  should  be  categorized  logically  than  sketched  or 
roughly  enumerated  physically :  because  we  are  going  to  ex- 
amine how  men  have  come  to  the  knowledge  of  their  physical 
nature,  and  we  ought  not  at  the  outset  (like  the  bad  psychology) 
to  anticipate  this  knowledge:  and  also  because  our  physical 
knowledge  is  continually  improving,  and  our  sketch  now  w^ould 
not  have  done  for  readers  of  Mr  Mill's  book  a  thousand  years 
hence.  But  this  goes  with  me  to  show  that  Mr  Mill,  since  he 
cannot  avoid  the  logical  view,  had  better  have  taken  it  boldly, 
as  what  it  is.  I  think  his  partial  taking  it  has  misled  him 
more  than  a  more  thorough  taking  it  would.  Talking  so  much 
of  *  things',  I  think  he  realizes  some  logical  entities  more  than  he 
would  have  doneif  he  had  allowed  himself  more  to  talk  of 'notions'. 

Mr  Mill  then  (in  this  respect  not  unwise)  takes  '  things  * 
from  the  dictionary,  not  from  the  universe,  and  understands  by 
them  *  nameables '.  It  is  not  quite  easy  to  follow  this  view,  as 
an  index  to  'things',  nor  can  it  be  accepted  except  as  a  very 
rough  one.  *  Things'  are  in  this  view  *  that  which  names  are 
meant  to  designate,  and  very  much  besides  like  that  which  is 
thus  designated' — of  all  the  infinity  of  *  things ',  it  is  only  that 
part  which  has  already  come  under  human  knowledge  which  is 
named:  and  there  is  so  much  human  mis-knowledge,  altoge- 
ther one  is  puzzled — I  think  'notions'  and  'concepts'  would 
after  all  have  been  easier :  unless  I  have  read  Mr  Mill  carelessly, 
it  hardly  appears  whether  the  '  things '  he  speaks  of  are  assumed 
to  '  exist '  or  only  to  be  the  objects  of  names,  in  which  cases, 
like  Centaurs,  they  may  not  exist,  and  never  have  existed — but 
I  need  not  dwell  upon  this.     I  need  hardly  say  that  I   have 


VIII.] 


LOGIC — MR   MILL. 


165 


myself  sufficiently  spoken  of  the  importance  of  language  in  the 
advance  of  thought  not  to  quarrel  with  Mr  Mill  for  making 
such  use  of  it  as  is  possible. 

Coming  now  to  the  second  member  of  the  triplicity,  Mr  Mill 
is  as  careful  to  avoid  the  use  of  the  expression  'judgments '  as 
he  was  before  as  to  'notions'  and  'concepts' :  as  'things'  exist 
in  nature,  and  are  expressed  by  names,  so  '  facts '  or  '  phe- 
nomena', relations  of  things,  exist  in  nature,  and  are  expressed 
by  'propositions'.  And  as  effort  was  before  made  to  categorize 
or  classify  the  '  things',  so  the  same  is  now  done  as  to  the  facts 
or  phenomena,  and  there  are  found  to  be  five  great  facts  or 
heads  of  fact  \ 

On  these  I  shall  not  comment,  except  very  slightly,  as  e.g.  on 
the  mention  of  'space'  and  'time'. 

They  occur  I  think  here  for  the  first  time,  and  I  am  not 
quite  certain  as  to  the  position  which  they  are  intended  to 
occupy — i.  e.  whether  they  are  to  be  considered  '  things ',  and  to 
come  under  the  category  of  attributes  of  matter,  or  of  matter 
and  of  mind — or  whether  they  are  something  prseter-real  which 
we  are  here  introduced  to,  and  with  which  '  things'  have  rela- 
tions, such  relations  as  we  see  here,  forming  the  object  of  propo- 
sitions. I  scarcely  know  whether  Mr  Mill  is  quite  aware  of 
the  gi'eat  delicacy  of  speaking  as  he  does  about  co-eodstence  in 
time  and  again  in  space,  and  about  'order'  in  them.  Two 
things  or  facts,  both  occupying  or  taking  place  in  space,  or  one 
doing  so  and  one  not,  or  perhaps  both  not  doing  so,  are  co-exist- 
ent 1  suppose  in  time  if  they  occupy  the  same  time.  The  same 
two  things  or  facts,  part  of  their  nature  being  the  occupation  of 
space,  if  they  occupy  the  same  space,  are  just  what  are  not 
co-existent,  either  in  time  or  in  space;  they  are  non-co-ex- 
istent in  time,  and  though  they  have  a  special  relation  the 
one  to  the  other,  it  is  not  one  which  any  term  of  this  kind  can 
express.  All  objects  filling  space  and  co- existent  in  time  may 
be  called  co-existent  in  space:  but  I  suppose  co-existence  in 

^  Mr  Mill  gives  five  great  heads  of  natural  fact,  just  as  he  gives,  with  what- 
ever success,  four  great  heads  or  categories  of  things.  The  facts  are  facts  about  the 
things,  or  what  the  things  enter  into,  in  the  same  manner  as  propositions  are  about 
the  terms,  or  what  they  enter  into.  These  categories  or  kinds  of  fact  are  Coexist- 
ences, Sequences,  Existence,  Causation,  Resemblance. 


I   1 


h 


166 


LOGIC — MR   MILL. 


[chap. 


space  means  proximity,  side-by-sideness — equally  exclusive  of 
occupation  of  the  same  space  or  of  a  remote  one. 

I  mention  these  various  things  only  to  show  that  what 
Mr  Mill  is  speaking  about  here  is  not  at  all  a  matter  of  easy  con- 
sideration, or  clear — otherwise  I  do  not  know  that  about  space 
and  time  I  am  particularly  likely  to  dififer  with  him.  Whether 
they  had  come  in  previously  under  'things'  or  come  in  here 
first  as  something  with  which  '  things '  have  a  relation,  is  not  a 
matter  of  consequence  in  my  view.  Things  are  in  them,  and 
yet  if  we  like  to  extend  the  use  of  the  term,  they  are  things 
too:  they  are  objects,  so  far  as  we  can  tell,  of  our  right  or 
grounded  thought,  and  that  is  all  that  I  mean  by  '  things'. 

As  space  and  time  come  thus  in  here,  after  we  have  cate- 
gorized the  universe,  so  there  comes  in  at  a  later  stage  still,  in 
the  chapter  entitled  '  On  the  Ground  of  Induction',  something 
which  I  should  have  thought  would  have  come  in  sooner.  But 
I  will  speak  of  this  by  itself  in  another  chapter,  though  I  fear 
it  will  not  be  in  what  I  publish  now. 

In  the  same  manner  in  which  'things'  are  /nameables',  so 
propositions  are  in  Mr  Mill's  view,  though  he  does  not  use  the 
language,  'asseribles'  or  *assertables'.  That  is,  their  object  exists 
in  nature  in  the  same  way  as  the  object  of  names  does.  The 
universe  is  an  infinite  complication  of  the  'nameable'  and  the 
'assertable'  (or  thing  and  fact)  from  the  former  of  which  we 
separate  portions  into  distinct  nameables  or  things,  from  the 
latter  of  which  we  separate  portions  into  distinct  assertables  or 
propositions.  A  thorough  philosophical  language  is  the  ideal  of 
a  good  separation  of  the  former  kind.  An  ideally  good  separa- 
tion of  the  latter  kind  would  be  a  perfect  scheme  or  rationale 
of  knowledge. 

As  I  said  in  regard  of  names,  we  are  puzzled  by  the  fact  of 
human  error,  and  by  the  vast  mass  of  the  asserted  which  is  not 
properly  asserted,  that  is,  of  propositions  which  do  not  corre- 
spond with  any  facts  of  nature.  The  truth  of  propositions  is 
their  so  corresponding.  And  the  case  in  regard  of  the  proposi- 
tions is  different  from  that  in  regard  of  the  names.  It  is  in  the 
asserting  facts  of  nature,  and  only  such,  that  is  truth.  And 
how  do  we  know  how  to  do  this,  and  when  we  do  do  it? 

This  is  proper  Logic :    and  here,  in  respect  of  the  third 


VIII.] 


LOGIC — MR   MILL. 


167 


member  of  the  triplicity,  Mr  Mill  does  come  to  a  certain  extent 
to  a  logical  point  of  view,  i.e.  entertains  the  idea  not  only  of 
things  being  and  our  expressing  them,  but  of  our  thinking  and 
reasoning  about  them. 

I  may  perhaps  however  have  spoken  too  generally  about 
this— but  it  is  not  of  importance.  I  am  not  writing  to  criticize 
Mr  Mill.  There  is  in  him  abundance  of  most  valuable  logic  in 
reference  to  definitions  &c.  (the  earlier  portion  of  the  triplicity). 
And,  in  reference  to  reasoning  (the  latter  portion  of  it),  there  is 
kept  up  fully,  as  with  what  went  before,  the  notion  that  what 
we  want  is  in  nature — that  it  is  not  supposition  of  ours  about 
nature.  Only  that  with  reference  to  this  third  member  of  the 
triplicity,  the  manner  of  our  proceeding  in  reference  to  what 
is  thus  in  nature  is  given  more  elaborately :  as  is  natural,  this 
being  the  most  special  and  thoroughly  necessary  business  of  logic. 

Without  at  all  entering  to  or  criticizing  Mr  Mill's  Real 
Logic  as  compared  with  others,  which  would  be  quite  beyond 
my  present  purpose,  I  shall  just  mention  what  in  his  view  (so 
far  as  I  understand  it)  is  in  nature,  and  how  we,  in  the  progress 
of  knowledge,  proceed  in  reference  to  it. 

Mr  Mill  changes  his  ground  (so  I  describe  it,  but  that  is  of 
no  importance)  from  things  to  fact. 

I  mean  by  this,  that  his  important  continent  of  the  universe  ^ 
as  something  to  be  investigated,  in  other  words,  that  which  the 
universe  and  its  contents  eodst  in,  is  time,  not  space ;  in  other 
words  still,  that  which  we  are  to  investigate  in  the  universe  is 
not  (at  least  so  much)  what  is  or  exists  in  the  universe,  but 
what  goes  on  in  it.  Order  in  space  is  with  him  of  some  import- 
ance in  the  universe,  but  only  apparently  in  reference  to  some 
geometrical  considerations,  and  so  much  as  to  occupy  a  few 
pages:  what  is  important  in  the  universe  is,  its  sequences,  and 
as  I  shall  take  the  liberty  of  calling  them,  its  'contemporanei- 
ties' (or  co-existences  in  time)  or  'simultaneities'  (I  use  the 
word  to  prevent  any  misleading  of  the  term  'co-existences'). 

But  as  the  sequences  ane  thus  important  in  the  universe,  so 
there  is  something  most  important  in  respect  of  them  :  there 
are  uniformities  of  them,  or  invariable  sequences  among  them: 
(these  uniformities  are,  in  a  manner,  quasi-identities  or  same- 
nesses of  sequence,  i.  e.  of  fact  or  occurrence,  they  are  what  we 


168 


LOGIC — MR   MILL. 


[chap. 


should  describe  roughly  as  the  same  fact,  their  sameness  being 
of  the  same  sort  as  that  which  generic  identity  gives  to  things 
— they  constitute  kinds  of  fact — they  are  sequences  different  in 
time  and  place,  and  with  different  accompaniments,  but  alike 
v^  in  themselves. 

These  sequences  have  their  conditions  or  antecedents  (which 
answer  with  them  to  the  qualities  of  things) :  but  each  sequence 
has  what  we  may  call  a  prime  condition,  or  antecedent  not  only 
invariable,  but  really  connected  with  it,  and  unconditional,  which 
gives  us  the  answer  to  the  question.  Why  has  it  occurred  ?  and 
which,  as  we  conceive,  accounts  for  the  sequence  being  what  it 
is :  and  this  is  its  'cause'. 

In  the  case  of  contemporaneities  or  (definitely  constituted) 
things,  it  might  be  considered  there  must  also  be  some  prime 
quality,  corresponding  to  cause  in  the  case  of  fact,  giving  the 
reason  and  principle  of  the  thing,  and  making  the  thing  what  it 
is,  in  the  same  way  as  the  caiise  does  in  the  case  of  fact.  This 
however  Mr  Mill  does  not  allow :  considering  indeed,  that  we 
may  indeed  look  for  the  cause  or  causes  which  have  made  the 
thing  what  it  is,  but  that  is  all.  I  mention  this,  not  as  criti- 
cizing, but  as  showing  what  1  mean  by  saying  that  with  him 
what  is  important  in  the  universe  is  the  fact  or  sequences  in  it, 
not  the  things  (contemporaneities  or  co-existences)  which,  he 
considers,  depend  upon  the  other.  His  proceeding  has  a  sort 
of  similarity  of  contrast  with  that  of  Bacon,  with  whom  the 
causes  of  fact  depended  on  the  forms  or  prime  properties  of 
things,  which  he  thought  the  important  part  of  nature*. 

I  mention  it  also  for  this  reason.  The  regularity  of  the  uni- 
verse, that  is,  both  the  entire  connexion  of  fact  and  the  entire 
compages  of  thing,  is  composed,  in  Mr  Mill's  view,  of  a  number 
of  regularities,  or  different  sequences  and  co-existences.  Mr 
Mill  speaks  to  this  effect  very  quietly,  without  seeming  to  ob- 
serve how  much  he  is  saying.  I  have  already  spoken  of  the 
circumstances,  most  complicated,  under  which  there  takes  place 
this  process,  which  I  am  quite  willing  should  be  described  as  we 
please,  either  as  the  universe  separating  itself  in  our  presence 

^  Mr  Mill  criticizes  Bacon's  view.  Vol.  n.  p.  1-28,  2nd  Edit.  See  the  accurate 
description  given  of  this  part  of  Bacon's  method  by  Mr  Ellis,  in  his  Greneral 
Introduction  to  Bacon's  Philosophical  Works,  Ellis  and  Spedding's  Edition. 


VIII.] 


LOGIC — MR   MILL. 


169 


into  units  of  fact  and  being,  or  as  our  conceiving  separate  and  in- 
dividual fgicts  or  things.  In  reality,  the  facts  or  sequences  which 
he  speaks  of — would  rarely  have  any  unitary  character  at  all, 
that  is,  would  hardly  be  looked  at  as  separate  or  particular  facts, 
without  the  notion  of  a  cause  or  necessary  antecedent,  and  it  is 
this  which  most  strongly  suggests  the  existence  of  such  cause. 
But  the  same  is  the  case  in  regard  of  things.  Mr  MilFs  word 
'coexistence'  as  I  have  before  said,  always  puzzles  me,  and  I 
converted  it  into  *  contemporaneity'.  But  it  is  evident  that 
a  thing  is  more  than  a  contemporaneity  of  attributes  (a  crow 
e.  g.  more  than  a  contemporatieity  of  blackness,  feathers,  living 
tissue,  &c.)  and  yet  the  question  is,  What  more  ?  Unless  Mr 
Mill  flies  to  his  unknown  substratum,  about  which  I  shall  shortly 
have  something  to  say,  what  is  the  nexus  or  connexion  in  virtue 
of  which  we  say  'co-existence'?  Is  it  spatial  ?  but  what  are  we 
to  think  of  things  indefinitely  separated  or  indefinitely  dispersed 
in  space,  as  the  solar  system,  or  a  gas  ?  We  seem  to  want,  in 
regard  of  the  '  thing',  to  individualize  it  or  separate  it  from  the 
rest  of  the  universe,  exactly  that  same  nexus  which  the  sup- 
posed cause  supplies  in  the  case  of  the  sequence:  or  at  least 
the  'co-existence'  requires  some  explanation — a  better  one 
than  the  substratum. 

This  looking  in  the  univei-se  at  fact  rather  than  things,  at 
what  goes  on  rather  than  at  what  is,  is  of  course  a  part  of  that 
general  tendency  to  look  at  matter  of  knowledge  as  history  or 
occurrence,  which  belongs  to  positivism  (I  do  not  mean  the  word 
at  all  in  any  invidious  sense). 

Such  then  bemg  the  mattef  of  knowledge,  viz.  the  facts  or 
sequences  in  the  universe,  and  the  circumst^ce  of  importance 
in  respect  of  each  of  these  being  its  '  cause',  what  is  our  mental 
position  in  respect  of  them?  Any  adstance  or  presence  with 
them  must  be  by  an  intermediation  of  some  kind,  and  it  might 
have  been  considered  what  sort  of  intermediation  there  could 
be.  Mr  Mill  however,  as  I  have  said,  deals  with  the  universe 
as  with  facts,  not  with  things:  and  the  knowledge  of  these 
facts  he  describes  (most  reasonably)  as  belief:  by  so  doing  he 
takes  what  I  have  called  the  logical  point  of  view,  or  considers 
what  is  the  state  of  our  consciousness.  In  other  words,  when 
we  use  the  term  belief  of  anything,  it  is  not  the  same  view  as 


^s. 


■agg" 


170 


LOGIC — MR   MILL. 


[chap. 


if  we  said,  Such  and  such  a  thing  is  in  nature,  it  is  there  what- 
ever is  the  case  with  me,  whether  I  believe  it  or  disbelieve  it, 
whether  I  am  alive  or  dead,  whether  or  not  there  is  or  has 
been  anybody  to  know  about  it — in  this  case,  if  we  do  suppose 
anybody  by  or  present  (adstant)  to  know,  we  must  bear  in  mind 
that  the  thing  known  is  entirely  independent  of  the  know- 
ledge. When,  on  the  other  hand,  we  speak  of  believing,  con- 
ceiving, &c.,  the  thing  known  is  a  part  of  the  knowledge :  we 
are  at  what  I  called  the  logical  point  of  view :  we  must  not 
previously  suppose  the  independent  existence  of  the  thing 
known,  because  its  existence  depends  upon  the  correctness  of 
our  belief:  we  cannot  speak  with  meaning  of  believing  any- 
thing that  is  in  the  universe  :  we  believe  something  about  the 
universe,  and  if  our  belief  is  correct,  then  we  may  say  with 
reason,  if  we  like  the  language,  the  thing  is  in  the  universe, 
but  not  before.  We  believe  then  in  the  first  instance,  by  a 
belief  counter-respondent  to  {i.  e.  the  same  thing  as,  looked  at 
the  other  way)  simple  adstance  or  presence  with  the  thing 
known,  the  existence  of  the  facts  or  sequences :  if  we  believe 
anything  as  to  the  causes  of  them,  it  must  be  through  an 
intermediation,  which  is  what  we  call  *  evidence',  and  the 
treatment  of  this  evidence  is  the  purpose  of  Mr  Mill's  Logic 
proper. 

Mr  Mill's  Logic  then,  like  Bacon's,  is  simply  a  Theory  of 
the  Evidence  of  the  Facts  of  Nature,  or  Art  of  dealing  with 
it,  in  the  double  way  of  dealing  with  evidence  which  belongs 
to  all  use  of  it,  whether  for  legal  purposes  or  for  others,  viz.  to 
find  out  by  it  that  which  we  dcr  not  know,  and  to  verify  by  it 
(or  prove  to  others)  what  we  suppose  we  do  know.  This  is 
one  way  in  which  the  advance  of  knowledge  may  be  looked 
on:  we  go  on  from  one  to  another  fresh  step  of  knowledge: 
each  must  be  fresh,  and  each  must  be  knowledge  :  we  have  got 
therefore  first  to  have  it  suggested  to  our  thought,  and  then 
shown  to  be  knowledge  :  the  evidence  acts  to  both  purposes. 

Mr  Mill  uses  the  word  '  induction'  in  a  wider  and  in  a  nar- 
rower sense :  first,  for  all  inference,  or  in  fact  all  mental 
process,  by  which  anything  is  added  to  knowledge,  or  know- 
ledge grows :  and  next  for  the  particular  case  of  such  inference 
or  process,  in  which  the  added  knowledge  is  more  general  than 


VIII.] 


LOGIC — MR    MILL. 


171 


that  which  it  had  proceeded  from.  Hence  the  most  important 
process  of  Induction  in  the  first  sense  is  Deduction,  by  which 
latter  term  is  signified  a  triple  process :  first  of  Indiiction  in 
the  second  sense :  next  of  Ratiocination,  which  may  be  con- 
sidered an  extension  or  expansion,  in  the  sense  of  a  wide  appli- 
cation, of  the  general  truth  thus  approximately  obtained :  and 
finally,  a  continued  Verifying  or  testing  it  as  thus  applied. 

This  language  does  not  seem  to  me  very  happy  for  general 
use :  by  which  I  mean :  every  philosopher  has  a  right  to  his 
own  language  :  I  think  such  language  is  generally  best  when  it 
is  most  his  own :  and  all  this  language  is  explained  and  used 
by  Mr  Mill  with  most  perfect  clearness.  But  the  term  'De- 
duction', of  which  I  do  not  very  well  know  the  history,  was  I 
suppose  invented  and  used  as  an  antithesis  to  Induction :  and 
so,  in  books  inferior  to  Mr  Mill's,  and  in  much  philosophical 
language  derived  more  or  less  from  his  views  it  constantly  is : 
with  him  it  scarcely  represents  such  an  antithesis :  it  is  most 
expressly  opposed  to  'Experimental'.  Altogether,  I  do  not 
think  the  language  is  favourable  to  clearness  of  thought,  and 
I  question  whether  there  is  much  significance  in  what  Mr  Mill 
says,  as  to  the  Anti-Baconian  revolution  (so  to  call  it)  now  going 
on.     But  I  will  not  dwell  on  this. 

I  am  not  at  all  going  to  criticize  Mr  Mill's  System  of  Eeal 
Logic,  if  so  we  may  call  it.  To  do  this  with  any  utility  would 
require  much  more  space  and  care  than  belongs  to  my  present 
purpose.     I  will  only  make  one  or  two  observations. 

A  Real  Logic  has  in  one  respect  two  parts,  thus :  it  contains 
always  in  some  degree  a  sort  of  review  of  the  manner  in  which 
knowledge  has  advanced,  and  also  a  scheme,  system,  and  ratio- 
nale of  the  manner  of  proceeding  which  is  best  for  its  future 
advance.  Every  Real  Logic  is  to  me  of  great  interest  on  ac- 
count of  the  former  of  these  parts  of  it.  But  the  different 
views  taken  of  the  circumstances  under  which  knowledge  has 
advanced,  or,  in  other  words,  which  have  been  the  cause  of  its 
advance,  make  me  put  not  much  faith  in  the  second  part,  or 
in  any  Real  Logic  as  a  kind  of  art  of  the  advance  of  know- 
ledge for  the  future.  The  logical  language  which  the  new 
Real  Logic  is  introducing  seems  to  me  to  be  of  a  cumbrous 
character,  as  likely  to  be  a  load  upon  speculation  and  investi- 


•4 


mr^M^'-i  ggg* 


172 


LOGIC— MR   MILL. 


[OHAP. 


gation,  and  as  little  likely  to  be  helpful,  as  much  of  the  old 
Formal  Logic.  I  think  there  is  still  something  to  desire  as  to 
the  way  in  which  we  ought,  philosophically,  to  think  of  the 
vast  advance  in  physical  knowledge  which  man  has  made.  And 
till  we  understand  it  in  this  way  more  than  it  seems  to  me  we 
do,  I  think  any  conclusions  from  the  manner  of  it  as  to  our 
best  way  of  proceeding  now  are  very  doubtful.  According  to 
Mr  Mill,  we  are  unlearning  Baconianism — would  it,  or  would 
it  not,  have  been  better  for  us  never  to  have  learnt  it  ?  or  after 
all,  is  it  nothing  that  we  have  learnt  and  are  now  unlearning, 
only  a  manner  of  speaking?  Apparently,  however,  non-logical 
physical  research  has  been  too  strong  for  our  Baconian  Real 
Logic — if  this  is  so,  I  do  not  say  that  no  purpose  is  served  by 
our  trying,  in  whatever  degree,  to  direct  this  research  by  a  fresh 
Real  Logic,  but  only  that  the  same  thing  may  happen  again. 

In  another  quite  different  respect  also  a  Real  Logic  has  two 
parts :  viz.  it  has  a  view  of  nature  or  of  the  universe,  and  it  has 
a  view  of  the  manner  in  which  our  mind  should  proceed  for  the 
advance  of  the  knowledge  of  it.  These  two  are  pretty  certain 
of  course  to  be  connected  together,  and  if  the  one  is  wrong, 
some  things  also  necessarily  in  the  other  must  be :  but  it  may 
be  some  only,  and  it  is  quite  possible  that  to  a  considerable  ex- 
tent the  views  may  be  separable. 

Li  the  case  of  Mr  Mill  his  Logic  of  Evidence  may  be  to  a 
considerable  extent  separated  from  his  phenomenalist  view  of 
nature  :  we  may  disallow,  or  think  very  insufficient,  his  view  of 
the  universe  with  its  supposed  sequences  and  their  causes,  and 
yet  consider  that  the  scheme  he  gives  of  the  manner  in  which 
we  may  best  find  out  the  truth  about  something  which  we  want 
to  know,  is  most  valuable,  important,  and  useful  For  all  this 
'  Induction '  is  only  what  we  are  always  about  when  we  want  to 
increase  our  knowledge  of  any  kind,  or  to  find  out  the  truth 
about  anything.  This  Mr  Mill  tells  us,  and  truly.  And  this  is 
important,  in  relation  of  my  present  discussion,  in  this  way. 
What  seems  most  important  to  Mr  Mill's  mind,  and  what  many 
of  his  readers  think  most  important  in  his  researches,  is  the 
making  a  Real  Logic  for  Social  and  Moral  Science — the  appli- 
cation of  methods  which  have  been  so  fruitful  as  to  physical 
science,  now  to  moral.     I  have  not  the  least  doubt  but  that 


VIII.] 


LOGIC — MR   MILL. 


173 


Mr  Mill's  book  is  full  of  most  valuable  hints  and  helps  for  such 
a  Real  Logic.  But  so  far  as  this  is  so,  I  think  it  is  quite  in- 
dependently of  his  view  of  nature  and  of  the  universe.  So  far 
as  his  book  is  a  good  Real  Logic  in  general,  applicable  to  Moral 
Science  as  well  as  physical,  it  might  be  taken  in  hand  for  in- 
stance by  a  lawyer,  and  there  might  be  published,  similar  in 
method  to  it,  and  without  a  word  about  sequences  and  co- 
existences, a  treatise  e.g.  on  the  manner  in  which  we  hunt  out 
crime,  and  bring  it  home  to  any  body — the  word  'causa'  is 
probably,  like  alria,  a  quasi-legal  word  from  '  caveo ',  signifying 
who  or  what  is  to  blame  for  anything,  to  whom  or  what  it 
ought  to  be  attributed.  I  dare  say  Mr  Mill's  Deduction,  with 
its  three  steps,  would  be  the  best  way  to  set  about  this — a  pre- 
liminary induction  would  fix  upon  some  one  for  strong  suspicion 
— suppose  him  to  be  the  man,  and  argue  then  what  other  sup- 
positions must  follow  from  this — see  if  these  suppositions  are 
verified  by  actual  fact.  I  put  this  in  this  manner  only  to  show 
how  thoroughly  independent  all  of  it  is  of  Mr  Mill's  peculiar 
language  or  of  his  views  of  the  universe :  it  is  his  Logic  as  a 
good  logic  of  discovery  of  fact  and  belief  of  it  on  evidence 
which  is  of  value  for  moral  and  social  science,  not  his  Logic  as 
founded  on  any  particular  view  of  nature. 

How  far  Mr  Mill's  view  of  the  Inductive  Deduction  to  which 
I  have  just  now  referred,  is  really  different  from  Dr  WheweU's 
view  of  fitting  a  conception  to  the  observed  facts,  is  not  easy  to 
say — I  very  much  doubt  whether  it  is  greatly  so.  Mr  Mill's 
discussion  with  Dr  Whewell  as  to  the  '  conceptions '  is  in  sub- 
stance double:  Do  the  conceptions  belong  to  the  mind,  or  are 
they,  if  right,  in  the  facts?  Is  the  process  of  two  members 
only,  a  comparison  of  conceptions  and  facts,  or  is  it  more  elabo- 
rate, induction,  ratiocination  and  verification? 

I  have  just  alluded  to  this  controversy,  which  I  am  not 
going  to  pursue,  for  the  two  following  reasons. 

My  difference  with  Dr  Whewell,  as  we  shall  shortly  see,  is  in 
this:  that  I  think  the  conceptions — which  are  described  as  taking 
their  origin  in  the  mind — are  nothing  but  the  other  side,  so  to 
speak,  of  the  facts  which  are  described  as  independent  of  the 
mind,  and  to  which  the  conceptions  are  to  be  applied.  I  regard 
therefore   the   first  member  of  the  above  discussion  between 


I 


V 


\h 


w 


174 


LOGIC — MR   MILL. 


[chap. 


Dr  Whewell  and  Mr  Mill  as  not  involving  any  real  matter  of 
discussion.  It  is  discussed  in  Mr  Mill's  Chapter  on  Abstractions : 
he  makes  great  effort  to  prove  that  "  the  conceptions  which  we 
"  employ  for  the  colligation  and  methodization  of  facts,  do  not 
"  develope  themselves  from  within,  but  are  impressed  upon  the 
"  mind  from  without :  they  are  never  obtained  otherwise  than  by 
"  way  of  comparison  and  abstraction,  and  in  the  most  important 
"  and  the  most  numerous  cases  are  evolved  by  abstraction  from 
"the  very  phenomena  which  it  is  their  ofiBce  to  colligate^". 
If  the  reader  follows  what  I  have  written  all  along,  he  will 
see  that  one  special  value  to  me,  of  the  view  which  I  take, 
is,  that  it  prevents  this  most  undecidable  controversy.  Let 
us  call  knowledge  whichever  we  please,  an  impression  made 
by  reality  upon  the  mind,  or  a  right  view  taken  by  the  mind 
as  to  reality,  but  do  not  let  us  discuss  ivhich  it  is,  for  it  is  either 
and  both:  do  not  let  us  say  it  is  one  to  the  exclusion  of 
the  other,  for  then  we  shall  infallibly  become  slaves  of  our 
terms,  and  think  that  we  mean  something  really  taking  place, 
when  we  talk  of  '  conceptions  being  impressed  upon  the  mind 
from  without':  in  respect  of  each  view,  its  counter- view  is^ 
needed  to  prevent  any  such  misapprehension:  and  last,  do  not 
let  us  say,  which  seems  to  me  to  be  Dr  Whewell's  mistake,  that 
knowledge  is  partly  in  the  facts  and  partly  from  the  mind :  the 
highest  conceptions  are  in  the  things  as  well  as  the  most  mate- 
rial and  secondary  quality:  the  most  material  quality^  as  a 
part  of  knowledge,  is  a  notion  of  the  mind,  as  well  as  the 
highest  conception. 

If  this  discussion  is  pub  aside,  we  come  much  more  freely  and 
hopefully  to  the  other,  namely,  that  as  to  the  manner  of  the 
action  of  the  mind  in  adding  to  its  store  of  knowledge,  and  eli- 
citing truth.  And,  as  1  have  hinted,  it  would  probably  be  really 
the  better  for  the  Real  Logic  of  Science,  that  it  should  not  be 
too  speedily  involved  with  technical  terms,  but  that  the  general 
principles  of  the  logic  of  learning  or  finding  out  anything 
should  be  as  distinctly  as  possible  laid  down  first.  Mr  Mill 
appeals  from  his  technical  logic  to  the  natural  logic  of  us  all : 
*  Let  any  watch  the  manner  in  which  he  himself  unravels  any 
complicated  mass  of  evidence^':  and  then  he  goes  on  to  de- 


^  Vol.  II.  pp.  233,  234. 


*  VoL  II.  p.  20. 


VIII.] 


LOGIC — MR   MILL. 


175 


scribe  how  we  speculate,  and  form  our  theories,  &c.  and  see 
whether  they  will  do,  and  so  on.  In  reality,  I  doubt  much 
whether  any  purpose  is  served  by  speaking,  in  a  manner  which 
I  have  described  as  '  cumbrous  *,  about  the  *  Hypothetical 
Method ',  for  instance — the  disadvantage  is,  that  we  get  hard 
and  sharp  technical  distinctions,  of  little  use,  as  it  seems  to  me. 
This  'Hypothetical  Method',  says  Mr  Mill,  'out  of  the  three  pro- 
cesses, induction,  ratiocination,  verification,  suppresses  the  for- 
now  the  former,  surely,  at  least  exists  in  the  shape  of 


mer 


*  suggestion ',  and  considering  that  in  the  proper  '  Deduction  * 
the  preliminary  induction  is  avowedly  incomplete,  the  limits  be- 
tween such  suggestion  and  the  incomplete  induction  are  very 
vague :  and  then  the  distinction  between  the  preliminary  induc- 
tion and  the  final  verification  is  by  no  means  very  absolute :  as 
the  terms  are  technically  used  by  Mr  Mill,  no  doubt  it  is  so : 
but  as  I  have  said,  the  technical  ism  ought  to  stand  upon  a 
general  basis  of  good  mathetic  logic,  or  the  logic  of  learning, 
finding  out,  arriving  at  truth,  and  then  we  have  to  apply  this. 

The  reason  why  I  do  not  say  any  more  about  Mr  Mill's 
account  of  the  various  Inductive  and  Experimental  processes, 
is  because  what  is  of  interest  in  his  book  for  my  present  purpose 
is  his  view  of  nature  and  his  view  of  the  general  action  of  the 
mind.  I  shall  investigate  to  a  certain  degree  how  far  he  is  or 
is  not  free  from  what  I  have  called  '  notionalism',  and  from  what 
I  have  called  wrong  psychology :  I  shall  allude  to  what  he  says 
about  the  logic  of  the  moral  sciences :  and  after  an  interval, 
shall  make  a  few  additional  remarks  upon  his  most  general 
views  of  the  universe,  of  truth,  and  of  the  manner  of  our  arriv- 
ing at  it,  and  the  extent  to  which  we  do  so  arrive. 


I 


CHAPTER    IX. 
MILKS  LOGIC  CONTINUED. 

If  any  person  would  have  been  likely  to  avoid  notionalism  (or 
relativism)  and  the  wrong  psychology,  one  would  have  thought 
that  Mr  Mill  would,  on  account  of  his  strong  view  of '  things '  as 
the  objects  of  knowledge,  and  of  his  clear  observation  of  the  dif- 
ference between  *  sensation'  as  'consciousness'  and  'sensation'  as 
(so  to  call  it)  *  bodily  affection'.  I  do  not  think  he  does  avoid 
either  of  them,  and  the  present  chapter  is  a  discussion  as  to  his 
doing  so :  the  conclusion  which  I  draw  from  this  is,  that  phe- 
nomenalism, with  a  philosophic  mind  like  his,  will  not  stand 
alone,  and  if  it  cannot  have  (what  seems  to  me)  right  philo- 
sophy to  support  it,  must  have  wrong. 

1.  In  speaking  of  an  unknown  and  unknowable  substra- 
tum of  things,  Mr  Mill  seems  to  me  amenable  to  all  that  I  said 
in  speaking  of  Mr  Ferrier,  about  the  error  of  those  philosophers 
who  speak  about  '  things  in  themselves ',  or  use  any  language 
of  that  kind,  from  a  logical  point  of  yiew,  converting  their  mere 
logical  supposition  into  a  supposed  reality.  I  will  leave  this 
however  for  a  moment,  and  before  saying  more  about  it,  will 
say  a  little  about  something  else. 

2.  I  think  Mr  Mill  is  inconsistent  with  himself  in  the  fol- 
lowino^  manner.  All  facts  of  body  are  ultimately  facts  of  mind, 
t.  e.  the  truth  about  them  is  capable  of  being  reduced  to  truth 
of  thought  in  the  thinking  mind.  This  is  what  I  understand 
him  to  say,  what  I  heartily  agree  with  him  in,  and  what  seems 
to  me  the  same  as  my  saying,  that  the  phenomenalist  view  is  a 
partial  one  or  an  abstraction,  and  that  the  philosophical  view, 
or  that  from  the  point  of  view  of  consciousness,  is  the  compre- 
hensive and  complete  one.  But  in  this  philosophical  view,  that 
which  we  are  conscious  of  in  the  first  step  of  immediateness  is 


CHAP.  IX.] 


MILLS   LOGIC. 


177 


on  the  one  side  our  own  feelings,  on  the  other  side  something 
which  gives  occasion  to  them,  which  latter  developes  itself,  as 
our  intelligence  goes  on,  into  the  facts  of  body  or  phenomenal- 
ism.   Thus,  on  the  philosophical  view,  these  facts  of  body  stand 
at  a  further  remove  from  our  consciousness,  the  test  of  certainty, 
than  our  feelings  do :  which  Mr  Mill  himself  seems  to  consider' 
in  saying  that  the  facts  of  body  may  be  ultimately  referred  to 
feelings  of  mind.     But  then  these  feelings  of  mind  ought  not 
to  be  put  on  the  same  level  of  thought  as  the  facts  of  body, 
as  phenomena   together  with  them,  to  be  treated  conjunctly 
with  them,  and  to  be  considered  as  forming,  along  with  them,  a 
class  of  nameables  in  the  universe.     Still  less  ought  a  system'of 
logic,  formed  upon  the  basis  of  the  observation  how  we  advance 
in  the  knowledge- of  the  phenomena  of  body,  to  be  applied  to 
them,  and  to  be  considered  as  the  instrument  by  which  we  shall 
advance  in  knowledge  of  them.     And  Mr  Mill's  attempting  to 
do  this  seems  to  me  inconsistent  with  hi^  saying  previously, 
that  the  facts  of  body  are  ultimately  referrible  to  feelings  of 
mind— z.  6.  that  these  latter  stand   at  a  higher  stage,  in  the 
complete  view,  than  the  former.     The  immediate  result  of  this 
logic,  which  I  have  called  phenomenalist,  is  the  denial  of  the 
existeuce  of  will,  and  of  causation  as  action :  I  e.  as  soon  as  the 
feelings  of  mind  are  professedly  set  by  the  side  of  the  facts  of 
body  as  co-phenomena,  they  are  really  subordinated  to  them, 
no  longer  treated  as  facts  of  mind  or  consciousness,  but  dealt 
with  according  to  principles  which  the  phenomenalist  logic  ha« 
given.     It  is  quite  possible  that  our  supposed  consciousness  of 
wiU  or  activity  may  be  a  delusion :  but  it  is  possible  in  exactly 
the  same  manner,  and  at  the  same  stage  of  thought,  in  which  it 
is  possible  for  our  supposition  of  the  existence  of  an  universe 
independent  of  us,  or  a  spatial,  external  world,  to  be  a  delusion. 
Our  feeling  of  our  activity  or  of  our  being  sources  of  change 
^  exists  by  the  side  of,  and  at  the  level  of,  the  entire  and  general 
feeling  that  there  is  a  universe  independent  of  us.     We  follow 
out  this  latter  feeling  into  phenomenalism,  and  lay  down  (or 
describe)  the  facts  of  the  universe  :  but  it  is  not  a  proper  course 
to  put  by  the  side  of  these  facts,  and  to  consider  as  phenomena 
analogous  in  any  way  to  them,  our  various  consciousness,  or  our 
feelings,  which  belong -to  a  higher  and  different  region.     Our 

12 


178 


MILL  S   LOGIC. 


[chap. 


feeling  of  there  being  a  universe  at  all,  upon  which  all  phe- 
nomenalism depends,  is  but  one  of  these  feelings.  Our  feelings, 
viewed  from  the  philosophical  point  of  view  or  point  of  view  of 
consciousness,  are  not  phenomena  of  the  universe  or  capable  of 
standing  by  the  side  of  such,  but  the  universe,  if  we  like  to  use 
the  language,  is  a  fact  or  phenomenon  of  them. 

I  do  not  quarrel  with  the  looking  at  our  feeling,  so  far  as  it 
can  be  so  looked  at,  from  the  phenomenal  point  of  view.  Each  one 
of  us  is  a  corporeal  organization  in  the  universe,  filling  space  as 
a  tree  fills  space,  and  sensitive  more  or  less  as  a  dog  is  sensitive. 
Of  this  sensitiveness  which  we  share  certainly  with  the  dog, 
perhaps  with  the  tree,  for  there  may  be  an  infinite  number  of 
degrees  and  kinds  of  it,  we  may,  from  the  phenomenal  point  of 
view,  have  some  notion :  it  is  a  fact  of  the  universe :  we  may 
call  it  if  we  like  consciousness :  we  may  apply  our  individual 
feeling  of  consciousness  towards  the  gaining  this  notion,  so  far  as 
we  can :  we  may  imagine  what  the  dog's  feeling  must  be,  and 
judge  from  what  he  does,  how  far  it  is  like  our  own :  I  have  no 
quarrel  with  all  this.  All  I  say  is,  that  with  each  one  of  us  (if 
we  say  *each  one'),  with  me,  with  you,  the  one  great  reality  which 
absorbs  all  others  is  that  I,  you,  think  and  feel,  and  we  only 
talk  of  a  universe  because  we  think  and  feel  that  there  is  one ; 
that  our  thought  in  this  way  surrounds  or  embraces  the  uni- 
verse and  cannot  therefore  be  embraced  by  it  in  such  a  manner 
as  to  be  liable  to  have  said  of  it,  This,  or  that,  matter  of  con- 
sciousness, is  inconsistent  with  such  and  such  laws  of  the  uni- 
verse which  we  have  discovered,  and  therefore  cannot  be  true. 
We  may,  to  a  certain  extent,  be  able  to  treat  of  our  thought  or 
feeling  as  embraced  in  the  universe,  as  a  fact  of  it :  but  we  have 
no  right  to  conclude  that  because  we  may  do  this  we  may  con- 
clude things  about  it,  from  its  being  a  fact  of  the  universe, 
which  the  thought  itself,  as  consciousness,  disowns. 

There  seems  to  me,  in  all  this  attempt  to  apply  pheno- 
menalist  logic  to  the  consideration  of  thought  and  feeling,  to 
be  the  same  confusion  of  two  views  which  I  have  all  along 
been  noting.  We  are,  for  physical  and  physiological  study 
(which  is  what  I  call  phenomenal)  one  species  of  animal  upon 
the  earth,  the  highest  that  we  know,  with  communicative 
tongues  and  constructive  hands,  so  that  we  can  make  all  sorts 


IX.] 


MILLS   LOGIC. 


179 


of  things   and   combine   together,  with  common  and  mutual 
understanding,  to  make  them,  and  talk  about  them,  and  talk 
in  our  own  minds  about  them— we   may  study  the  facts   of 
our  own  nature,  including  our  thought  and  feeling  to  the  ex- 
tent I  have  mentioned  above,  in  our  place  in  the  universe,  as 
we   may  study  any  facts  of  any  nature,  phenomenally.     But 
we  are,  and  we  cannot  help  really  feeling  ourselves,  for  pur- 
poses of  philosophical  and  moral  study,  not  this,  but  something 
different— what  I  should  call,  'higher'.    We  feel  with,  and  we 
feel  ourselves  as  having,  a  free  consciousness,  a  disposition  to 
look  at  things  generally,  a  curiosity,   or  love  of  knowing,  a 
disposition  to  do  things  for  a  purpose  and  to  try  to  do  them 
well,  all  which  with  kindred  feelings  besides,  makes  us  occupy, 
in    our    own    view,    the    position,    not  of  animals,   however 
high,  in  the  universe  with  a  sphere  and  environment,  and  with 
our  own  existence  subordinated  to  that,   but  of  observers   of 
the  relation  between  ourselves  and  this  universe,  with  its  ex- 
istence  subordinated  to  ours,   believing  in  it  not  because  we 
are  inferior  to  it  but  because  we  think  it,  judging  about  it  as 
well  as  studying  it,  and  when  we  are  settling  upon  our  action, 
thinking,  from  this  free  point  of  view,  what  is  worth  doing, 
what  wants  doing,  what  it  is  well  should  be  done ;  not  simply 
considering  that  our  experience  in  the  universe  as  the  animal 
man,  is  to  guide  our  action  in  the  same  way  as  a  dog's  ex- 
perience or  instinct  as  the  animal  dog  guides  his,  which  is  what 
he  cannot  help. 

I  have  put  this  a  little  strongly  just  to  mark  how  it  is 
at  the  point  of  human  nature  and  human  action  that  we  must 
take  care  that  we  keep  the  views  distinct.  I  have  been  notic- 
ing, throughout  what  I  have  been  saying  now,  the  confusion, 
as  it  seems  to  me,  of  the  two  views,  in  reference  to  philoso- 
phy or  the  study  of  knowledge :  Mr  Mill,  in  respect  of  the 
application  of  his  logic  to  knowledge,  does  not  much  fall  into 
it,  but  he  does  when  he  thinks  to  apply  his  logic  to  social 
science  and  to  morals.  Because  for  these,  in  my  view,  we  must 
start,  not  from  phenomena,  but  from  consciousness,  in  the  same 
way  as  we  start  for  the  higher  philosophy  of  knowledge.  I 
have  just  tried  to  describe  what  I  mean  by  this.  The  put- 
ting our  feelings  as  co-phenomena  with  the  facts  of  the  uni- 

12—2 


180 


MILLS   LOGIC. 


[chap. 


yerse  is  the  bringing  them  from  a  higher  level  to  which  they 
do  belong  to  a  lower  to  which  they  do  not.  It  is  analogous 
in  a  different  application  of  thought,  to  the  want  of  clearness 
of  view  in  setting  before  ourselves  the  question  whether  we 
are  thinking  of  ourselves  as  corporeal  and  local,  or  whether  we 
are  considering  how  we  gain  the  knowledge,  or  conceive  the 
notion,  of  corporealness  and  locality. 

From  what  I  have  said  as  to  the  extent  to  which  our 
feelings  may  be  treated  phenomenally  it  will  be  understood 
that  I  do  not  wish  to  deny  the  possibility  of  much  valuable 
result  from  this  line  of  thought — ^but  it  must  be  kept  within 
its  proper  limits  for  this,  and  must  be  subordinate,  as  a  logic 
of  philosophy  and  morals,  to  the  logic  of  the  higher  point  of 
view  which  I  have  mentioned.  Whereas  Mr  Mill  considers, 
and  I  believe  has  influenced  many  to  consider,  that  by  what 
he  has  said  he  has  opened  the  way  to  a  new  and  better 
method,  promising  much  advance,  in  respect  of  social  science 
for  instance  and  morals.     This  I  think  is  mistaken. 

I  should  perhaps  have  said,  that  for  the  phenomenalist 
study  of  human  nature  and  morals,  we  have  now,  at  this  stage 
of  the  world's  life,  something  beyond  physics  and  physiology, 
in  the  facts  of  the  history  of  human  society.  All  this  I  most 
fully  allow,  and  the  very  valuable  results  which  may  result 
from  the  study  of  these  facts  or  phenomena.  But  even  these, 
though  phenomena  if  we  like  to  call  them  so  of  a  higher 
order,  do  not  alter  what  I  have  said,  that  our  starting  point 
must  not  be  from  them.  All  that  man  has  done,  whatever 
aid  it  may  give,  can  never  teach  us  what  man  should  do  or 
what  it  is  best  for  him  to  do,  any  more  than  the  facts  of  the 
universe  can. 

Before  however  proceeding  further  on  the  logic  of  the  moral 
sciences,  which  is  what  comes  last  in  Mr  Mill's  book,  I  had 
better  finish  what  I  have  to  say  about  the  '  unknowable  sab- 
stratum'  of  things,  and  mention  one  or  two  points  in  which 
there  seems  to  me  confusion. 

3.  I  am  not  at  all  now  criticizing  Mr  Mill,  which  could 
not  be  properly  done  except  at  much  greater  length  than  I 
wish  here  to  go  to,  and  without  going  into  details  which  would 
interfere  with  the  general  view  which  I  want  to  give.     I  take 


IX.] 


MILL  S   LOGIC. 


181 


his  book,  a  book  well  known  and  of  universally  acknowledged 
merit,  as  a  type  of  a  kind  of  thought,  and  so  far  as  he  is 
concerned,  it  is  quite  sufficient  answer  for  him  to  say  that  I 
have  misunderstood  him.  This  is  not  unlikely,  but  in  that 
case  the  criticism  of  the  view  which  I  suppose  in  him  remains 
the  same. 

This  may  be  not  an  improper  place  to  call  attention  to  a 
possible  misunderstanding  of  the  term  'phenomenal',  as  I  use 
it.  I  use  it  as  an  adjective  formed  from  'phenomenon',  in  our 
present  acceptation  of  the  word  phenomenon,  as  synonymous 
with  physical  fact,  or  fact  of  nature,  or  fact  in  the  universe,  or 
however  we  describe  it.  The  word  '  phenomenon ',  in  this  use, 
is  a  relic  of  the  old  philosophy  which  taught  that  all  in  nature, 
as  sensible,  was  appearance,  and  that  the  process  of  learning 
or  gaining  knowledge  or  forming  true  notions  was  a  coming, 
through  the  intervention  of  this  appearance,  and  by  proper 
thinking  about  it  (dialectic)  at  the  idea  ox  true  reality  of 
things,  and  forming  our  notions  in  conformity  with  this.  The 
word  '  phenomenon',  as  I  use  it,  means  to  those  who  are  what  I 
call  wrong  phenomenalists,  or  positivists,  simply /ac^,  they  recog- 
nizing no  other  reality :  to  me  it  means  what  it  does  to  them, 
so  far  as  used  for  their  purposes,  but  also  besides,  for  philo- 
sophical purposes,  what  it  meant,  in  the  main,  to  the  old  philo- 
sophers. That  is,  I  look  upon  our  complete  and  right  concep- 
tion of  things  as  something  in  relation  to  which  our  view  of  the 
universe  as  fact  or  nature  is  something  incomplete — I  do  not  call 
it  deceptive  appearance,  but  I  call  it  partial  and  an  abstraction. 

The  words  'phenomenal',  'phaenomenal',  'phenomenology', 
and  other  such,  as  they  are  used  by  Sir  William  Hamilton  and  a 
great  many  philosophers  at  present,  carry  with  them  a  different 
reference,  /recognize  in  'noumena*,  their  opposite,  only  mental 
creations,  temporary  notions,  if  we  like  so  to  call  them,  formed 
as  aids  to,  or  in  the  way  towards,  the  notions  which  we  want  to 
form,  not  at  all  the  things  themselves  or  our  final  notions  of 
them.  What  the  physicist  considers  facts  are  'phenomena'  (sig-> 
nificantly)  in  the  eye  of  the  philosopher,  because  he  takes  cog- 
nizance of  something  further  back  than  the  physicist  goes,  viz, 
that  he  only  calls  them  'facts'  because  they  seem  to  him  so, 
which  last  is  the  real  fact,  the  fact  of  facts :  the  universe  is  all 


1*^----.-- V  inrm 


182 


MILLS   LOGIC. 


[chap. 


a  dressing  up  of  one  side  of  this  fact :  lie  wants  to  escape  from 
the  word  'seem',  not,  as  the  simple  phenomenalist  does,  by 
ignoring  this  latter  great  fact,  but  by  facing  it,  and  trying  whe- 
ther he  can  arrive  at,  or  approach  towards,  anything,  in  regard 
of  which  the  word  *  seem'  would  lose  its  meaning,  and  be  felt  as 
identical  with  *is' — at  anything  which  is  to  him  with  the  same 
completeness  and  conviction  as,  in  his  own  view,  he  himself  is. 
In  this  view  the  idea,  the  proper  reality,  is  the  true  object  of 
knowledge:  it  is  what  all  our  efforts  are  directed  towards:  to 
say  that  it  is  not  matter  of  knowledge,  that  it  is  something 
which  from  its  nature  cannot  be  known,  is  negativing  the  view 
altogether:  it  is  just  what  can  be  known,  and  the  only  thing 
which  can  be  known  in  the  full  propriety  of  the  term,  so  far  as 
we  can  attain  to  know  it. 

All  this  is  entirely  different  from  the  notion  of  an  unknow- 
able noumenism  with  which  phaenomenism  (as  I  here  on  pur- 
pose write  it)  is  contrasted,  phsenomena  being  supposed  only 
the  dress  of  the  noumena,  and  the  latter,  though  in  their  nature 
unknowable,  being  the  things  in  themselves,  the  substratum, 
the  true  realities.  Our  consciousness,  the  ultimate  test,  sug- 
gests to  us,  we  may  say,  ourselves,  as  a  continuing  substratum 
of  our  varying  feelings;  but  it  does  not  suggest  to  us  this  as 
unknown,  for  it  is  just  what  we  most  do  know:  and  it  is  quite  a 
false  parallel  to  suppose  that  in  any  way  our  consciousness  sug- 
gests to  us  a  (supposedly)  similar  unknowable  substratum  for 
the  occasions  of  our  sensations,  or  phenomena.  What  our  con- 
sciousness suggests  to  us  on  this  side  is  not  at  all  this,  but  is 
a  universe  or  existing  order  of  things  of  which  we  form  a  part 
at  the  same  time  that,  in  the  first  instance,  we  in  our  thought 
comprehend  it.  What  suggests  the  supposed  substratum  is 
merely  nationalism,  or  wrong  conclusion  from  the  manner  or 
process  of  our  knowledge,  which  is  the  describing  things  by  pre- 
dicating qualities  of  them,  so  that  in  the  process  of  knowledge, 
we  have  to  suppose  the  thing  (for  it  is  only  temporary  supposi- 
tion), independent  of  each,  and  therefore  of  all,  its  qualities. 

I  hope  what  I  have  said  may  make  it  clear  how  my  use  of 
the  term  'phenomenal'  differs  from  Sir  William  Hamilton's  in 
that  passage  of  his  quoted  in  Mr  Mill's  later  editions  ^  where 

*  Vol.  I.  p.  65,  4th  edit 


IX.] 


MILLS   LOGIC. 


183 


he  says,  "All  that  we  know  is  therefore  phaenomenal — ^phgeno- 
"menal  of  the  unknown."  All  that  we  know  is  but  a  small  part 
of  the  knowable,  and  since  we  all  hold  whatever  we  know  ow  a 
whole,  since  our  knowledge  is  a  view  of  things  or  of  the  uni- 
verse, since  there  is  given  us  in  our  mind  so  to  speak  a  frame 
for  our  knowledge,  which  the  particular  things  which  we  know 
more  or  less  fill  up — all  that  we  know  may  be  regarded  as  that 
appearance  which  the  universe  or  reality  takes  to  us — as 
phaenomenal  of  the  unknown  whole — the  whole  unknown  and 
unknowable  as  a  matter  of  fact,  but  not  unknowable  in  its 
nature  or  philosophically. 

It  seems  to  me  a  strange  perversion  of  the  notion  of  know- 
ledge to  suppose  that  we  can  know  that  anything  is  in  its 
nature  t^?iknowable,  except  so  far  as  the  notion  'knowledge'  is 
inapplicable  to  it,  in  which  case  nobody  would  talk  of  knowing 
it,  or  would  call  it  unknowable.  We  do  not  talk  of  colours  as 
inaudible,  and  if  we  do  of  sounds  being  invisible,  it  is  because 
of  the  wide  and  loose  way  in  which  sight  is  used  as  the  type  of 
all  sense.  It  is  the  giving  a  mere  logical  puzzle  as  a  supposed 
wholesome  humbling  of  the  intellect  which  is  what  I  call  '  no- 
tionalism  *  or  '  relativism '. 

To  return  from  these  obsei-vations  on  "phenomenalism  to 
Mr  Mill.  In  that  passage'  which  I  have  just  referred  to,  I 
doubted,  in  the  former  edition,  where  he  ceased  to  speak  the 
language  of  Kant,  and  where  he  began  his  own :  in  the  latter 
it  appears  more  clearly.  He  preserves  in  his  note  the  passage 
of  Cousin  which  expresses,  as  pointedly  as  could  possibly  be 
expressed,  the  relativism  with  which  I  have  expressed  my  dis- 
agreement, now  evidently  as  expressing  his  own  view,  and  he 
adds  the  passage  from  Sir  William  Hamilton  which  I  have  just 
quoted. 

"It  may",  says  Mr  Mill,  "be  safely  laid  down  that  of  the 

"  outward  world we  know  and  can  know  absolutely  nothing, 

"except  the  sensations  which  we  experience  from  it*'*, 

^  Page  78,  '2nd  edit. ;  page  64,  4th  edit. 

■  I  am  in  a  difficulty  as  to  what  to  quote  here,  but  perhaps,  I  had  better  print 
in  this  note  the  whole  passage  of  Mr  Mill  (since  I  shall  return  to  it  again),  as  it 
stands  in  the  fourth  edition,  omitting  only  the  long  passage  from  M.  Cousin, 
which  the  reader  may  imagine.     I  wiU  first  give  the  text. 

**  But  although  the  extreme  doctrine  of  the  Idealist  metaphysicians,  that 


m 


184 


MILLS   LOGIC. 


[chap. 


€i. 


tii 


I  mentioned  some  time  since  that  a  good  test  of  a  philo- 
sopher's manner  of  thought  was  his  use  of  the  term  *  object  of 

"  objects  are  nothing  but  our  sensations  and  the  laws  which  connect  them,  has  not 
"  been  generally  adopted  by  subsequent  thinkers ;  the  point  of  most  real  importance 
"  is  one  on  which  those  metaphysicians  are  now  very  generally  considered  to  have 
"  made  out  their  case  :  viz.  that  all  we  know  of  objects  is  the  sensations  which  they 
"give  us,  and  the  order  of  the  occurrence  of  those  sensations.     Kant  himself,  on 

this  point,  is  as  explicit  as  Berkeley  or  Locke.     However  firmly  convinced  that 

there  exists  an  universe  of  'Things  in  themselves,'  totally  distinct  from  the 
*'  universe  of  phenomena,  or  of  things  as  they  appear  to  our  senses ;  and  even 
*'  when  bringing  into  use  a  technical  expression  {Noumenon)  to  denote  what  the 
"thing  is  in  itself,  as  contrasted  with  the  representation  of  it  in  our  minds;  he 
"  allows  that  this  representation  (the  matter  of  which,  he  says,  consists  of  our 
"  sensations,  though  the  form  is  given  by  the  laws  of  the  mind  itself)  is  all  we  know 
"of  the  object  :  and  that  the  real  nature  of  the  Thing  is,  and  by  the  constitution 
"  of  our  faculties  ever  must  remain,  at  least  in  the  present  state  of  existence,  an 
" impenetrable  mystery  to  us.  'Of  things  absolutely  or  in  themselves,'  says  Sir 
*'  William  Hamilton,  *  be  they  external,  be  they  internal,  we  know  nothing,  or 
"  'know  them  only  as  incognisable ;  and  become  aware  of  their  incomprehensible 
"  '  existence,  only  as  this  is  indirectly  and  accidentally  revealed  to  us,  through 
"*  certain  qualities  related  to  our  faculties  of  knowledge,  and  which  qualities, 
"  *  again,  we  cannot  think  as  unconditioned,  irrelative,  existent  in  and  of  them- 
" '  selves.  All  that  we  know  is  therefore  phaenomenal, — phenomenal  of  the  un- 
"  *  known.'  The  same  doctrine  is  laid  down  in  the  clearest  and  strongest  terms 
"by  M.  Cousin,  whose  observations  on  the  subject  are  the  more  worthy  of  atten- 
"tion,  as,  in  consequeace  of  the  ultra-German  and  ontological  character  of  his 
"philosophy  in  other  respects,  they  may  be  regarded  as  the  admissions  of  an 
*'  opponent. 

"There  is  not  the  slightest  reason  for  believing  that  what  we  call  the  sensible 
"  qualities  of  the  object  are  a  type  of  anything  inherent  in  itself,  or  bear  any  affinity 
"to  its  own  nature.  A  cause  does  not,  as  such,  resemble  its  effects;  an  east 
"  wind  is  not  like  the  feeling  of  cold,  nor  heat  like  the  steam  of  boiling  water.  Why 
"  then  should  matter  resemble  our  sensations  1  Why  should  the  inmost  nature  of 
"  fire  or  water  resemble  the  impressions  made  by  those  objects  upon  our  senses  ? 
"  Or  on  what  principle  are  we  authorised  to  deduce  from  the  effects,  anything  con- 
cerning the  cause,  except  that  it  is  a  cause  adequate  to  produce  those  effects  ? 

It  may  therefore  safely  be  laid  down  as  a  truth  both  obvious  in  itself,  and  ad- 
"mitted  by  all  whom  it  is  at  present  necessary  to  take  into  consideration,  that, 
"  of  the  outward  world,  we  know  and  can  know  absolutely  nothing,  except  the 
"sensations  which  we  experience  from  it.  Those,  however,  who  still  look  upon 
"  Ontology  as  a  possible  science,  and  think,  not  only  that  bodies  have  an  essential 
constitution  of  their  own,  lying  deeper  than  our  perceptions,  but  that  this  essence 
or  nature  is  accessible  to  human  investigation,  cannot  expect  to  find  their  refuta- 
tion here.  The  question  depends  on  the  nature  and  laws  of  Intuitive  Know- 
"  ledge,  and  is  not  within  the  province  of  logic." 

I  will  now  give  the  note. 

"  Sir  William  Hamilton  even  goes  so  far  as  to  assert  that  this  opinion  not  only 
"now  is,  but  always  has  been,  held  by  nearly  all  philosophers.     '  It  has  been  com- 


(( 


(( 


tt 


u 


tt 


IX.] 


MILLS   LOGIC. 


185 


knowledge  * :  I  will  now  mention  another,  which  is,  his  use  of 
the  term  '  outward '  or  '  external '.  For  instance,  Mr  Mill  speaks 
in  one  place  of  something  being  '  external  both  to  the  body  and 
the  mind '  as  if  the  term  was  in  the  same  sense  applicable  to  both. 
This  is  just  the  way  of  speaking  which  I  do  not  understand, 
and  which  I  have  called  a  confusion  between  two  views.  The 
mind,  as  distinguished  from  the  body,  is  the  knowing  (thing)  or 
the  subject  of  the  attribute  knowledge,  in  regard  of  which  the 
question  is,  not  whether  anything  is  or  is  not  spatially  external 
to  it,  but  whether  it  is  or  is  not,  in  any  way,  independent  of  it. 
Not  however  to  dwell  on  this :  as  to  the  passage  quoted,  I  cannot 
see  the  force  of  it,  because  I  cannot  understand  what  '  the  out- 
ward world'  means  or  can  mean  more  than  the  (supposed) 
occasion  of  the  sensations  which,  in  Mr  Mill's  language,  *we 
experience  from  it'.  What  I  understand  by  the  term  'out- 
ward* is  a  reference  of  it  to  these  sensations:  so  far  as  we 
know  any  more,  if  we  do  so  know,  than  these  sensations  tell  us, 
the  term  '  outward '  so  far  ceases  to  be  applicable  to  it :  that  is 
all  that  seems  to  me  to  happen :  as  I  should  express  it,  we  are 
taking  no  longer  the  phenomenalist  view.  And  what  I  differ 
from  Mr  Mill  in  as  to  the  last  sentence  is  this,  that  while  con- 
demning apparently  Ontology,  or  the  notion  that  bodies  have  a 

"  '  monly  confessed,  that,  as  substances,  we  know  not  what  is  Matter,  and  are 
"  'ignorant  of  what  is  Mind.  With  the  exception,  in  fact,  of  a  few  late  Absolutist 
"'theorisers  in  Germany,  this  is,  perhaps,  the  truth  of  all  others  most  harmoni- 
"  *  ously  reechoed  by  every  philosopher  of  every  school.'  And  he  supports  his 
"  assertion  by  quotations  from  seventeen  thinkers  of  eminence,  beginning  with 
"  Protagoras  and  Aristotle,  and  ending  with  Kant.  Gladly,  however,  as  I  should 
"  learn  that  a  philosophical  truth  destructive  of  so  great  a  mass  of  baseless  and 
"misleading  speculation  had  been  universally  recognized  by  philosophers  of  all 
"  past  time,  and  that  Ontology,  instead  of  being,  as  I  had  hitherto  believed,  the 
"oldest  form  of  philosophy,  was  a  recent  invention  of  Schelling  and  Hegel ;  I  am 
"  obliged  to  confess,  that  none  of  the  passages  extracted  by  Sir  William  Hamilton 
"except  one  from  the  elder  Scaliger  and  another  from  Newton,  convey  to  my 
"mind  the  conclusion  that  the  writers  had  ever  come  within  sight  of  the  great 
"  truth  which  he  supposes  them  to  have  intended  to  express.  Almost  all  the  pas- 
" sages  seem  to  me  perfectly  compatible  with  the  rejection  of  it;  and  in  most 
"I  cannot,  by  any  legitimate  interpretation,  find  anything  more  than  a  recog- 
"nition  of  the  far  more  obvious  principle,  that  our  knowledge  of  external  things 
"  is  necessarily  conditioned  by  the  laws  of  our  knowing  faculty :  a  very  different 
"  thing  from  the  assertion  that  the  laws  of  that  faculty  are  such  as  to  deny  us 
"  all  knowledge  of  outward  things,  except  that  of  their  mere  existence." 


agfeg 


■•O^^Hb 


^^  «    ».     !•■        -^ 


! 


: 


)    ; 


186 


MILLS   LOGIC. 


[chap. 


super-perceptional  constitution  which  we  may  hope  to  find  out, 
he  seems  to  countenance  the  belief  that  they  have  one,  which, 
from  its  very  nature  it  is  useless  for  us  even  to  try  to  find  out. 
This  is  the  '  notional '  Ontology,  if  I  may  so  call  it,  which  seems 
to  me  worse  than  an  attemptedly  Real  Ontology.  It  is  what 
I  have  alluded  to  above  as  the  Kantist  manner  of  thought — 
I  give  no  opinion  as  to  proper  Kantism.  I  say  nothing  at  all 
as  to  whether  there  is  any  meaning  in  speaking  of  *  an  essen- 
tial constitution  of  things ':  I  say  only  this,  that  if  the  notion  is 
to  be  entertained  even  so  far  as  to  say  that  such  a  thing  is 
possible,  this  constitution  must  have  some  relation  to  the  facts 
about  things  which  we  know  by  our  sensations,  along  which  re- 
lation there  is  a  road  for  our  intellect  towards  the  knowledge  of 
this  constitution — ^how  good  a  road  is  a  question  I  do  not  enter 
upon :  the  question  is  as  to  a  chasm  or  discontinuity  in  virtue 
of  the  nature  of  things. 

I  do  not  allude  to  this  in  Mr  Mill  for  the  purpose  of  criti- 
cizing his  sentences — it  requires  much  fuller  consideration  than 
I  am  giving  here  to  know  how  far  a  particular  sentence  ex- 
presses a  philosopher's  full  view — ^but  because  it  is  all  a  part  of 
that  which  is  my  difference  with  him — ^his  not  indeed  ignoring 
the  philosophical  view,  which  would  be  the  course  of  many 
phenomenalists,  but  his  attempt  to  bring  it  in  along  with  the 
phenomenalist,  in  a  way  which  confuses  both.  He  thus  seems 
to  consider  that  the  semi-Ontology  of  Kantists  and  Sir  William 
Hamilton  (which  seems  to  me  a  mocking  of  our  intelligence) 
will  come  in  by  the  side  of  his  phenomenalism,  while  a  further 
going  philosophy  will  not.  I  have  taken  as  the  real  or  import- 
ant Hne  of  thought  with  him  that  which  seems  to  me  really  in- 
consistent with  this,  and  in  which  *  notionalism '  is  just  what  he 
opposes.  What  we  see  and  name  are  '  things ',  and  propositions 
express  'facts'  or  'phenomena*.  Ideas  of  things,  and  judo- 
ments  about  things,  may  in  this  view,  and  I  agree  with  him  in 
it,  be  left  out  of  consideration. 

I  cannot  resist  dwelling  still  however  for  a  moment  on  this 
page  of  Mr  Mill,  in  which  every  sentence,  both  of  his  and  Sir 
W.  Hamilton's  fills  me  with  a  sort  of  wonder — how  so  much 
knowledge,  and  so  much  ignorance  or  nescience,  of  these 
'thmgs  in  themselves',  can  go  together,  I  cannot  understand. 


IX.] 


MILLS  LOGIC. 


187 


ti 


it 


"Of  things  absolutely  and  in  themselves",  says  Sir  William 
Hamilton,  "  be  they  external,  be  they  internal,  we  know  nothing, 
"  or  know  them  only  as  incognizable :  and  become  aware  of  their 
incomprehensible  existence,  only  as  this  is  indirectly  and  acci- 
dentally revealed  to  us,  through  certain  qualities  related  to  our 
"  faculties  of  knowledge,  and  which  qualities,  again,  we  cannot 
"  think  as  unconditional,  irrelative,  existent  in  and  of  themselves. 
"All  that  we  know  is  therefore  phaenomenal — phaenomenal  of 
"the  unknown^". 

I  go  with  the  description  so  far  as  this — we  know  the  object 
through  certain  qualities  fitted  to  our  faculties  of  knowledge — 
these,  in  language  I  have  used,  fit  each  other.     I  generalize : 
whoever,  whatever  mind,  even  an  all-knowing  one,  knows  the 
object,  knows  it  by  qualities  fitted  to  its  faculties  of  knowledge. 
Qualities  and  faculties  of  knowledge  go  together.     Suppose  one 
single  universal  faculty  of  knowledge,  in  place  of  various  special 
and  particular  ones,  what  the  mind  having  this  must  know  is — 
one  universal  quality  of  the  object  and  no  more.     Who  then 
knows  the  object  itself,  if  even  omniscience  does  not  and  cannot 
go  beyond  quality?    Here  we  have  doubtless  gpt  at  an  unknow- 
ableness  of  the  'thing  in  itself,  but  it  is  an  unknowableness 
I  think  of  my  sort,  viz.  because  there  is  nothing  to  know.     Or 
was  I  wrong  in  generalizing  as  I  did  above,  and  should  I  have 
said,  Some  minds,  including  ours,  know  objects  through  qua- 
lities, and  some  know  them  independent  of  knowledge  of  their 
qualities,  by  themselves  ?    They  know  them  then  I  suppose 
without  faculties  of  knowledge.     And  what  then  is  meant  by 
qualities?    By  qualities  or  properties  of  an  object  I  mean  no- 
thing but  what  (by  one  mind  and  another,  if  you  like,  accord- 
ing to  its  faculties)  can  be  known  about  it:   here  we  seem 
to  have  an  object  unqualitied,  unpropertied,  unconditioned — 
But  I  do  not  pursue  the  subject.     There  can  be  little  doubt 
but  that  in  all  this  there  is  the  confusion  I  have  spoken  of, 
and  that  the  philosophers  who  have  thought  in  this  manner 
did  not  know  whether  they  themselves  meant  that  we  could  not 
know  the  thing  itself  because  we   could   only  know  qualities, 
or  because  with  our  intelligence,  we  could  only  know  some 
qualities. 

*  Page  65,  4th  edit. 


I    iWiTtaWti. — . 


188 


MILLS   LOGIC. 


[chap. 


y 


The  real  being  of  things  is  doubtless  uncomprehended  hj 
us:  how  do  we  know  that,  and  how  do  we  know  why,  it  is 
incomprehensible?  How  do  we  know  that  the  revelation  of  the 
things  to  us  by  the  particular  qualities  by  which  we  know  them 
is  'indirect*  and  'accidental'?  Can  anybody  imagine  there  is 
any  meaning  in  these  terms  as  thus  applied?  Or  can  there  be 
a  worse,  and  a  more  vain  Ontology? 

This  is  the  worst  form  of  realism :  the  realizing  of  logical 
notions,  and  then  pacifying  our  intellectual  conscience  by  say- 
ing that  we  only  know  the  things,  the  result  of  this  our  real- 
izing process,  as  'incognisable'.     How  do  we  know  them  as 
that,  I  ask?    There  is  truth  within  its  province  in  phenome- 
nalist  realism,  so  to  call  it,  by  which  I  mean  the  supposition 
that  the   chemical  elements   or  constituents  of  the  universe, 
forces  perhaps,  are  the  ultimate  realities :  and  if  this  does  not 
satisfy  us,  as  it  does  not  me,  because  the  universe  consists  not 
only  of  such  things  as  these,  but  of  these  going  together  to 
make  other  things,  bodies  as  we  call  them,  organizations,  sys- 
tems, constitutions,  more  or  less  after  the  analogy  of  the  manner 
in  which  we  make  them  go  together  to  compose  things  which 
we  want  for  our  use,  ploughs,  houses,  &c.,  in  regard  of  which, 
besides  the  elements,  there  is,  at  once  in  our  mind  and  in  them, 
plan,  meaning,  purpose — then  we  may  consider  this  plan,  mean- 
ing, purpose,  itself  a  reality,  of  a  different  and  higher  nature 
than  the  elementary  reality,  and  as  constituting  the  real  thing- 
hood  of  the  things,  the  reason  why  we  notice  them  and  call 
them  things:  here  we  have  the  ideal  reality  of  things,  in  con- 
tradistinction to  the  phenomenal :   we  know  the  things  by  a 
process  which  may  equally  well  be  described  in  either  way, 
either  as  putting  meaning  into  the  things,  or  seeing  meaning  in 
them,  for  the  simple  reason  that  in  reality  the  thinghood  is  a 
something  between  the  two  sides,  the  subjective  and  the  ob- 
jective— it  is  the  meeting  of  the  two.    The  thinghood  of  a  thing 
is  the  proper  thoughtness  of  it — what  it  is  rightly  thought  to 
be  :  the  right  thinking  about  it  is  indeed  on  the  other  side  the 
thinking  of  it  as  it  is,  but  the  two  do  not  exactly  counterdefine 
each  other,  because  mind  comes  first — the  cardinal  point  of 
philosophy  in  my  view:  the  thing  as  thought,  pre-contemplated 
by  its  Creator,  contemplated  by  beings  with  created  faculties 


% 


IX.] 


MILLS   LOGIC. 


189 


of  knowledge  with  such  following  of  his  thought  as'  they  can 
attain  to,  is  the  idea,  the  ideal  thing,  the  ideal  reality,  the 
truest  reality.  ^ 

This  of  course,  when  carried  to  this  extent  is  abstruse  and 
may  seem  visionary:  no  one  need  carry  it  further  than  he  likes: 
what  I  have  endeavoured  to  show  is  that  to  whatever  extent 
we  go  along  it,  so  long  as  we  are  in  this  road,  we  have  a  true 
reality:  I  accept  the  notion  of  phenomenal  reality  most  fully, 
when  not  misapplied.  What  I  protest  against  is  the  wretched 
ghost  of  this  higher  philosophy  which  is  furnished  by  the  real- 
izing our  logical  notions.  It  is  Sir  William  Hamilton,  not  I, 
who  says  that  the  real  existence  of  things  is  only  '  indirectly 
and  accidentally  revealed  to  us'  by  the  phenomenal  knowledge 
which  we  have  of  them.  It  is  an  accident  of  the  things  we 
know  that  they  are  known  by  us,  but  that  they  are  known  by 
means  of  faculties  of  knowledge  such  as  ours  is  no  accident  of 
them — they  are  so  known  in  consequence  of  their  having  quali- 
ties which  those  faculties  fit,  which  qualities  are  as  much  a 
part  of  their  constitution  or  thinghood  as  an5rthing  else  of  them 
is.  Indirect,  we  may  indeed  call  the  revelation  of  them  if  we 
like,  in  this  way :  whatever  higher  realities,  so  to  call  them,  we 
may  be  able  to  know  about  them  might  have  come  to  our 
knowledge  without  the  necessity  of  so  much  lower  reality — of 
so  much  communication  and  contact,  to  be  used  by  intelligence, 
of  our  corporeal  or  sensive  frame  with  the  particular  natural 
agents,  elements,  constituents,  of  the  universe.  But  I  do  not 
think  there  is  really  reason  in  this.  I  do  not  think  man  is  the 
worse  for  the  fact,  that  for  such  knowledge  as  he  has  of  the 
universe,  there  has  been  obliged  to  be  such  a  vast  amount  of 
particular  observation  or  communication  between  his  senses  and 
phenomena.  Were  our  knowledge  direct,  it  would  be,  I  sup- 
pose one  great,  single,  monotonous  act :  we  know  the  higher 
properties  of  things  with  the  same  sort  of  indirectness  of  know- 
ledge with  which  we  know  that  the  earth  turns  round  the  sun, 
and  I  do  not  know  that  directness  of  knowledge  or  immediate- 
ness  of  feeling  would  be  any  advantage. 

I  suppose  that  Sir  William  Hamilton,  in  his  attempt  to 
unite  logic,  Reidian  psychology,  and  Kantian  criticism,  really  did 
confuse  together  the  logical  view  of  knowledge  as  a  forming 


< 


190 


MILL  S  LOGIC. 


[chap. 


proper  notions  of  what  (no  matter  to  logic  what)  in  virtue  of 
the  notions  thus  formed,  we  call  things,  and  the  view  of  know- 
ledge as  a  communication  or  presence  with  something  supposed 
existent.  The  idea  of  the  essential  unknowableness  belongs  to 
the  former :  the  solemnity  with  which  it  is  talked  about,  as  if 
this  unknowable  were  something  real  and  awful,  belongs  to  the 
latter. 

I  write  with  genuine  self-distrust  here,  in  spite  of  the  firm- 
ness of  my  conviction,  on  account  of  my  wonder  not  only  at 
Sir  William  Hamilton's  saying  what  he  does,  but  at  Mr  Mill's 
receiving  what  he  says  as  he  does.  In  spite  of  Mr  Mill's  ad- 
miration of  what  Sir  William  Hamilton  says  here,  whether  he 
and  Sir  William  Hamilton  really  understand  each  other,  is  what 
I  cannot  make  out :  Sir  William  Hamilton  says  the  doctrine 
which  he  gives  has  been  held  always  and  by  almost  all  philo- 
sophers, and  cites,  textually  and  in  order,  seventeen  philo- 
sophers to  prove  this :  Mr  Mill,  judging  from  Sir  William 
Hamilton's  own  citations,  thinks  all  but  two  of  the  seventeen  hold 
a  doctrine  different  and  apparently  wrong,  the  doctrine  which  I 
and  (it  would  seem)  most  people  hold.  If  we  consider  that  what 
Sir  William  Hamilton  really  holds  is  that  which  is  taught  by 
the  fifteen,  and  understand  his  text  by  this  comment,  then  he  is,  I 
suppose,  on  my  side  against  Mr  Mill.  Nor  can  I  make  out  from 
Mr  Mill's  own  description  whether  his  doctrine  is  really  the  same 
as  Sir  William  Hamilton's :  the  latter  says,  we  are  aware  of  the 
existence  of  things,  aware  that  it  is  incomprehensible,  and  aware, 
accidentally,  of  various  qualities  about  the  things:  Mr  Mill 
says,  as  I  understand,  'The  laws  of  our  knowing  faculty  are 
such  as  to  deny  us  all  knowledge  of  things,  except  that  of  their 
mere  existence*.  And  the  unexpected  fraternization  of  such  an 
Ontologist,  in  Mr  Mill's  view,  as  Mr  Cousin,  whom  Mr  Mill 
quotes  with  approval,  might  almost  make  him  suspect. 

I  dwell  on  this  in  Mr  Mill  rather  for  my  own  satisfaction,  in 
this  way:  in  order  to  convince  myself  that  I  really  do  him 
justice  in  treating  his  phenomenalist  view  and  logic  as  really  his 
true  view,  and  that  it  is  only  his  dread  of  Schelling  and  Hegel 
which  makes  him  fly  to  such  a  very  doubtful  auxihary  in  these 
points  as  Sir  William  Hamilton.    He  says,  shortly  afterwards*, 

*  pp.  69,  70,  4th  edit. ;  83,  84,  md  edit. 


IX.] 


MILLS  LOGIC 


191 


that  qualities  and  attributes  are  not  real  entities,  but  the  result 
of  the  convenience  of  discourse  (what  I  call  logical)^ :  and  he 
describes,  no  one  could  do  it  clearer,  the  various  sensations  which 
are  the  real  fact  when  we  use  the  logical  language,  such  and 
such  qualities.  The  confusion  arises  from  this :  that  while, 
as  clearly  as  can  be,  he  points  to  us  the  two  worlds,  or  two 
points  of  view,  to  which  the  expressions  '  quality '  and  *  sensa- 
tion '  belong,  he  makes  the  mysterious  unknowable  which  we 
have  been  speaking  of  a  citizen  of  both  worlds — a  something 
underlying  both  sensations  and  qualities.  Sensations  may  very 
likely  have  something  beyond  them — i.  e.  they  may  not  be  proper 
knowledge  themselves,  but  a  means  towards  knowledge :  if  so, 
that  which  they  are  the  road  to  is  just  what  we  can  know,  and 
ought  to  try  to  know.  Qualities  again,  as  a  logical  expression, 
may  involve  the  notion  of  a  subject  or  substance  :  but  this  latter, 
then,  by  the  notion  of  knowledge,  is  something  which  we  know 
when  we  know  the  quahties,  and  only  know  by  knowing  them : 
knowing  it  is  predicating  all  its  predicates  of  it :  to  try  to  know 
it  otherwise  is  like  trying  to  hear  a  colour.  Speculation  about 
the  basis  of  sensations  (if  we  like  to  use  the  language)  or 
qualities  as  they  are  phenomena,  may  be  fruitless,  but  is  not 
foolish:  speculation  about  the  knowledge  of  the  subject  of 
qualities  or  attributes  as  distinct  from  knowledge  of  the  quali- 
ties, and  the  treating  it  as  a  grave  and  real  fact  that  the  former 
is  unknowable,  is  foolish. 

4.  The  manner  in  which,  in  his  categories,  Mr  Mill  speaks, 
rather  reiteratedly,  of  facts  and  phenomena  being  resolvable 
into  states  of  consciousness,  after  he  had  put  facts  of  body  and 
facts  of  mind  by  the  side  of  each  other  as  going  together  to 
make  up  the  universe  of  things,  is  another  part  of  the  same 
bringing  in  of  philosophy  when  it  should  not  come.  The  ne- 
cessity of  this  reiteration  in  reference  to  particular  facts,  and 
as  it  seems  to  me,  puzzling  of  things,  would  have  been  spared 
by  the  saying  in  the  beginning,  as  I  should  do,  that  the  exist- 
ence of  body  itself,  the  universe,  anything,  is  a  fact  of  mind 

^  From  the  fact  that  the  qualities  are  not  real  entities,  Mr  Mill  apparently 
draws  the  conclusion  that  the  substratum  (the  thing  itself,  or  in  its  own  nature, 
supposed  unknowable)  must  be  real :  from  the  same  fact  /  draw  the  conclusion, 
that  it  is  only  a  supposition  rendered  necessary  by  the  supposition  of  tlt^nif  and 
has  the  same  reality,  or  non-reality,  with  them. 


I 


/ 


I 


192 


mill's  logic. 


[chap. 


or  mental  supposition  in  the  first  instance,  and  of  course  there- 
fore every  developement  of  it  is:  then,  with  this  preUminary 
supposition  made  about  body  and  all  the  facts  of  it,  we  might 
proceed  to  categorize  and  treat  them  without  continually  and 
puzzUngly  repeating  this  supposition  as  to  particulars.  In 
reality,  Mr  Mill's  continually  saying  that  facts  of  body  are  re- 
solvable into  facts  of  mind  is,  to  my  view,  a  refutation  of  the 
view  with  which  he  starts  that  facts  of  body  and  facts  of  mind 
go  by  the  side  of  each  other,  as  co-phenomena  in  the  universe. 

This  view  of  Mr  Mill's  is  of  course  the  view  of  the  ordi- 
nary, or,  if  I  may  call  it,  Lockian,  psychology,  and  Mr  Mill 
cannot  help,  as,  it  seems  to  me,  the  whole  of  that  does,  con- 
fusing the  philosophical  and  phenomenalist  views  together.     I 
cannot  understand  such  a  sentence  as  the  following :  "  I  infer 
"  that  the  object  is  present,  because  it  gives  me  a  certain  assem- 
"  blage  or  series  of  sensations'".     If  this  means,  as  I  suppose  it 
must,  *  because  I  feel  that  it  gives  me  the  sensations',  then  I 
am  aware  of  its  presence  before  the  inference.     If  it  means, 
'because,  as  a  fact,  it  gives  me  the  sensations',  then  the  fact 
is  not  properly  described  as  inference :  the  phenomenal  fact  is 
the  communication  (as  I  call  it)  between  the  natural  agents 
concerned  with  what  we  call  the  object,  and  our  organs,  and  this 
is  accompanied  with  the  feeling  or  fact  of  consciousness,  which 
makes  us  use  the  language,  *Such  and  such  an  object  is  present'. 
No  person  describes  more  clearly  than  Mr  Mill  the  distinction, 
as  he  calls  it,  between  the  sensation  itself,  and  the  state  of 
the  bodily  organs  which  (as  he  says)  precedes,  (as  I  should  say) 
accompanies   in  time,   the    sensation.     The    difficulty   begins 
when  he  goes  on  to  say,  '  and  which  constitutes  the  physical 
agency  by  which  it  is  produced',  the  same  language  as  in  the 
sentence   I   quoted,   'the    object  gives  sensations'.     'Physical 
ac^ency'  seems  to  imply  a  sort  of  intermediation  of  means  of 
some  sort :  and  what  intermediation  of  means  can  be  conceived 
between  a  physical  state  of  the  organ,  some  mode  suppose  of 
motion,  and  what  we  call  feeling  or  consciousness  ?     Nor  does 
Mr  Mill  seem  able  to  keep  hold  of  his  own  distinction  when 
he  uses  such  language  as  "  When  a  stone  lies  before  me,  I  am 
"  conscious  of  certain  sensations  which  I  receive  from  it :  but 

1  Vol.  I.  p.  83,  2nd  Edit. 


IX.] 


MILLS   LOGIC. 


193 


"  when  I  say  that  these  sensations  come  to  me  from  an  external 
"  object  which  I  perceive,  the  meaning  of  these  words  is,  that 
"  receiving  the  sensations,  I  intuitively  believe  that  an  external 
"  cause  of  those  sensations  exists'".   In  this  sentence  does  'receive 
the  sensations'  express  a  part  of  the  consciousness,  or  express 
simply  a  fact,  a  second  fact  besides  the  fact  that  '  the  stone  lies 
before  me'?     If  it  expresses  a  part  of  the  consciousness,  then  I 
cannot  understand  the  distinction  made  between  the  conscious- 
ness of  the  sensations  and  also  of  the  reception  of  them  from 
the  object,  in  the  first  part  of  the  sentence,  and  the  intuitive 
belief  that  the  object  exists,  in  the  last.     This  is  the  same  as  I 
said  in  regard  of  the  last  sentence  quoted.     If  the  conscious- 
ness is  simply  of  the  sensation,  or  feeling,  which  according  to 
Mr  Mill's  distinction  it  should  be,  then  the  stone  giving  me  the 
sensations,  or  my  receiving  them  from  it,  is  simply  a  matter 
of  fact,  like  the  stone  lying  where  it  does  lie,  and  then  there 
seems  to  me  the  confusion  between  the  two-  views,  which  is  no 
particular  fault  of  Mr  Mill,  for   I  conclude  it  to  belong  to  all 
the  psychology  which  he  here  represents.     Instead  of  describing 
a  thing  in  either  of  two  ways  in  which  we  might  describe  it, 
we  seem  to  describe  it  in  a  manner  confused  of  the  two.  '  When 
a  stone  lies  before  me,  i.  e.  corporeal  me,  filling  space  in  the 
universe,  it  gives  me  (or  I  receive  from  it)  certain  sensations ': 
this  is  my  manner  of  describing  the  fact  that  light  comes  from 
it  in  such  a  way  that  my  optic  nerve  and  brain  are  in  a  parti- 
cular state,  simultaneously  with  which  state  I,  knowing  sub- 
ject,  feel  or  think.  There  is  a   stone.     Or  we  might  say,  I, 
knowing  subject,  am  conscious  of  something  or  have  a  feeling 
— a  double  feeling,  viz.  of  a  feeling  and  a  supposed  occasion 
for  it ;  and  this,  taken  along  with  my  past  and  my  other  con- 
temporaneous consciousness,  is  what  I   express   by  saying,  I, 
corporeal  I,  see  a  stone  before  me  in  a  phenomenal  universe, 
filling  space  as  I  myself  do.     All  that  I  say  is,  that  we  must 
take  the  one  view  or  the  other,  and  that  it  is  mere  confusion  of 
thought  to  try  to  blend  both,  except  so  far  as  the  phenomenal 
one  may  be   absorbed  in   the   conscious.     If  'the   stone  lies 
before  us',  then  we  are  making  our  supposition  already  of  the 
phenomenal  world  and  ourselves  as  part  of  it,  and  anjrthing 


*    Vol.  I.  p.  70,  2nd  Edit. 


13 


i 


It 


'I 


I 


194 


mill's  logic. 


[chap. 


about  ourselves  which  will  not   come  into  relation  with  this 
phenomenal  world  is  so  much  besides  this  view  and  showing  it 
incomplete:    of  this  nature   is   our    consciousness   as   feeling, 
which  it  is  right,  with  Mr  Mill,  to  distinguish  from  its  bodily 
accompaniments,  but  as  to  which  it  is  otiose  and  useless  to  talk 
of  its  being  produced  by  physical  agency,  for  no  notion  which 
we  can  form  of  physical  agency  can  make  us  at  all  understand 
how  it  can  produce  what  we  call  'consciousness'  or  feeling.     If 
on  the  other  hand  'we  are  conscious  of  certain  sensations',  then 
we  begin  with  the  conscious  side  :  /,  then,  is  the  knowing  sub- 
ject :  we  interpret  the  sensations  into  the  thought  of  ourselves 
as  corporeal  or  phenomenal,  and  of  the  stone,  we  will  say,  lying 
before  us  and  being  seen  by  us :  but  on  this  supposition  and 
previously  to  the  supposition  of  the  interpretation  it  is  idle  to 
talk  of  '  the  stone  lying  before  us'.     The  stone  lying  before  the 
knowing  subject  is  like  such  a  phrase  as  'external  to  the  mind' 
which  I  commented  on  before. 

Whatever  is  wrong  in  all  this  Mr  Mill  shares  with  a  very 
large  number  of  others,  most  of  whom  have  gone  less  far  than 
he  has  in  drawing  attention  to  the  distinction  between  con- 
sciousness and  bodily  state  or  phenomenalism. 
To  come  now  to  the  logic  of  moral  science. 
I  do  not  want  to  go  into  any  detail  on  the  subject  of  social 
or  moral  science,  on  the  logic  of  which  Mr  Mill  has  several 
chapters,  though  in  reality  it  is  with  a  view  to  that  that  what  I 
am  now  writing  is  written ;  namely,  in  order  to  test,  by  com- 
parison with  the  views  of  others,  the  general  intellectual  or 
philosophical  spirit  in  which  I  should  look  on  moral  questions. 
But  what  I  have  said  will  be  made  clearer  by  a  word  or  two 
on  these  chapters. 

They  are  full  of  value.  I  agree  with  Mr  Mill,  that,  according 
to  the  title  of  his  third  chapter,  *  there  is,  or  may  be,  a  science 
of  human  nature'  in  the  manner  in  which  he  describes  such  a 
science  in  that  chapter:  such  a  science  does  exist,  more  or  less, 
as  a  practical  science :  we  do  study  human  actions,  and  more  or 
less,  accordingly,  predict  them:  this  prediction,  or  even  attempt 
at  prediction,  shows  that  we  consider  they  go  upon  laws.  Such 
a  science  as  this  may  be  in  some  degree,  but  only  in  some 
degree,  brought  into  relation  with  phenomenalism,  and  studied 


IX.] 


MILLS  LOGIC. 


195 


by  phenomenalist  logic.  Actions  are  determined  by  motives, 
circumstances,  and  character:  this  character  again  is  itself 
largely  determined  by  circumstances:  to  a  certain  extent  we 
may  consider  this  to  be  analogous  to  the  occurrence  of  natural 
phenomena  according  to  their  laws,  and  to  this  extent  we  may 
put  these  facts  of  mind  as  co-phenomena  in  the  universe  with 
facts  of  nature :  this  extent  is  not  I  should  think  determinable : 
and  under  the  circumstances  of  this  indetermination,  there  is  an 
extensive  approximate  or  inexact  science  of  human  action,  by 
which  we  may  learn  a  great  deal  about  it,  and  to  a  considerable 
extent,  as  I  have  said,  predict  it. 

But  the  point  where  I  differ  with  Mr  Mill,  and  that  which 
makes  me  say  that  we  must  not,  as  he  does,  except  to  a  small 
degree,  put  facts  (so  to  call  them)  of  mind  on  a  level,  as  co- 
phenomena,  with  facts  of  nature,  is  this.  We  seem,  in  my  view, 
to  have  in  the  above  but  a  small  part  of  what  is  wanted  for 
moral  and  social  science.  Mr  Mill  speaks*  of  '  the  laws  of  Mind, 
and  the  laws  of  Society',  and  says,  'it  is  still  a  controversy 
whether  they  are  capable  of  becoming  subjects  of  science,  in 
the  strict  sense  of  the  term' :  and  thinks  that  'the  principles' 
(i.e.  of  phenomenalist  logic)  'laid  down  in  the  preceding  books 
will  be  useful'  to  settle  such  controversy. 

No  doubt  they  would,  and  they  would  settle  it,  if  we  were 
to  allow  their  application,  but  that  is  what,  except  to  the  extent 
described  above,  I  should  not  be  disposed  to  allow.  Take  '  the 
laws  of  Society ',  mentioned  above :  what  do  we  mean  by  the 
term  ?  In  my  view  (I  am  not  now  speaking  of  any  religious 
view  we  may  entertain  besides),  what  we  call  '  society '  is  a 
creation  of  man,  which  then  he  (that  is  certain  portions  of  the 
human  race)  has  been  endeavouring  during  all  his  collective 
life  upon  earth  to  improve,  according  to  his  notions  of  improve- 
ment. The  result  we  call  'civilization'.  We  have  got  to  form 
our  notions  of  improvement,  in  order  to  do  our  pait,  in  our 
time,  for  this  work,  and  it  seems  to  me  that  the  first  and  great 
point  of  a  social  science  is  to  aid  us  in  forming  these  notions. 
We  may  examine  the  laws,  so  to  call  them,  upon  which  society 
has  developed  itself  (so  again  to  call  this) :  or  in  other  words,  we 
may  study  what  man  has  thought  about  society,  and  by  what 

*  Page  482,  2nd  edit. 

13—2 


v 


196 


MILLS   LOGIC. 


[chap. 


means  man  has  succeeded  in  creating  the  society  which  he  has 
created :  I  should  be  the  last  person  to  deny  the  importance  of 
all  this:  and  we  may  study  these  laws,  so  far  as  we  can  study 
them  in  that  manner,  as  we  study  the  laws  of  nature :  anthro- 
pology like  geology. 

But  before  we  can  act,  which  is  the  important  thing  as  to 
society,  as  Aristotle  told  us  long  ago,  we  must  know  what  we 
want.  In  social  and  moral  matters,  art  comes  first,  science 
afterwards,  and  therefore  the  phenomenal  view  will  not  be  suf- 
ficient for  us,  in  which,  as  Mr  Mill  rightly  describes  in  his  con- 
cluding chapter,  science  comes  first,  and  art  afterwards  as  an 
application  of  it.  Suppose  we  know  perfectly  how  society  has 
developed  itself,  or  how,  and  with  what  views,  man  has  created 
and  developed  it :  still,  before  acting,  we  want  to  make  up  our 
minds  what  society  ought  to  he.  That  is,  we  come  here  into 
the  region  of  ideals.  We  are  at  the  point  of  view,  not  of  phe- 
nomenalism and  observation,  which  has  become  subordinate, 
but  of  consciousness  and  activity.  The  laws  which  have  deve- 
loped society  may  in  virtue  of  their  having  done  so,  guide  us 
now,  for  one  of  two  reasons :  either  because  that  they  have 
been  is  taken  by  us  for  an  argument  or  proof  that  they  ought 
to  have  been,  and  were  what  was  meant  to  be  and  should  be 
now,  in  which  case  full  account  should  be  given  of  the  nature 
of  this  argument :  or  these  laws  may  guide  us  because  we  are 
not  really  active  and  have  not  really  power  of  choice,  though 
we  seem  to  have — we  may  say  that  they  will  guide  us  because 
they  will  guide  us.  Upon  this  manner  of  speaking,  which  is 
the  complete  application  of  phenomenalism  to  human  action,  I 
will  say  nothing  now.  No  person  can  really,  in  moral  and 
social  matters,  consistently  adhere  to  it.  There  cannot  but  be 
an  oscillation  of  expression  between,  *This  is  what  you  will 
do  anyhow',  and  *  This  is  what  you  ought  to  do*.  I  think  the 
reader  will  see  this  in  M.  Comte  :  it  is  never  exactly  clear 
whether  we  are  to  be  positivists  (I  mean  in  his  earlier  philoso- 
phical application  of  the  term,  not  with  reference  to  any  later 
extravagances)  because  we  ought  to  be,  or  because  it  is  certain 
we  shall  be,  and  is  what  we  have  come  to. 

Having  said  so  much  about  the  laws  of  society,  let  us  now 
take  the  laws  of  mind.     A  good  deal  of  what  Mr  Mill  says  in 


IX.] 


MILLS   LOGIC. 


197 


his  chapter  with  that  title  I  agree  with,  and  will  only  notice 
one  point  of  difiference,  because  it  is  important  to  illustrate  my 
own  view. 

In  the  paragraph'  which  begins  *  Whether  any  other  por- 
tion of  our  mental  states  (besides  sensation)  are  similarly  de- 
pendent on  physical  conditions',  he  appears  to  me  to  confuse 
the  views  from  the  point  of  consciousness,  and  from  that  of 
phenomenalism,  in  the  way  which  I  have  frequently  alluded  to. 

What  I  am  unable  to  see  is,  that  supposing  physiology  were 
carried  to  such  an  extent  that  every  association  (so  to  call  it) 
between  thoughts  were  proved  to  be  accompanied  (as  I  should 
call  it)  by  an  association  between  two  states  of  the  brain  and 
nerves:  that  even  then  'mental  science',  in  Mr  Mill's  language, 

*  would  be  a  mere  branch,  though  the  highest  and  most  recon- 
dite branch,  of  the  science  of  physiology'. 

I  mentioned  in  the  introduction  to  what  I  am  now  writing, 
that,  in  my  belief,  the  more  genuine  and  thorough,  in  a  proper 
way,  is  our  phenomenalism  on  the  one  side,  the  more  genuine 
will  be  our  philosophy  on  the  other.  Mental  science,  as  the 
analysis  of  consciousness,  seems  to  me  to  be  unaffectable  by 
anything  that  physiology  can  possibly  discover.  Whatever  may 
be  proved,  from  the  side  of  phenomenalism,  about  what,  simul- 
taneously with  thought,  takes  place  in  the  brain,  seems  to  me 
to  have  nothing  more  to  do  with  mental  science  as  the  analysis 
of  consciousness  than  anything  which  can  be  proved  about  what 
similarly  takes  place  in  the  eye  or  hand.  I  may  be  wrong,  but 
it  appears  to  me  that  in  all  that  Mr  Mill  says  here,  he  is  neither 
true  to  the  distinction  which,  as  we  saw  a  short  time  since,  he 
rightly  draws  between  feeling  and  bodily  states,  nor  to  his  own 
view,  phenomenally  I  suppose  correct,  of  causation  as  antece- 
dence. He  uses  such  expressions  as  '  thoughts  being  generated 
through  the  intervention  of  material  mechanism',  and  similarly 
'  produced'  and  other  terms  in  the  same  application,  as  we  have 
seen  before,  as  if  they  involved  the  thing  generated  being  in 
some  way  of  the  same  nature  as  the  generating — speaks  (e.  g.)  of 

*  derivative  uniformities'.  If,  as  he  tells  us  himself,  the  feeling  is 
something  in  its  nature  different  from  any  bodily  state,  how 
can  anything  that  is  discovered  about  the  bodily  state  convert 

^  VoL  n.  p.  504,  2nd  edit. 


•mm 


n 


t' 


198 


MILLS   LOGIC. 


[chap. 


the  science  of  the  feeling,  such  as  it  is,  into  a  science  of  the 
bodily  state,  or  physiology  ? 

I  have  alluded  to  this,  because  it"appears  to  me  that  nothing 
is  more  important  at  the  present  time  than  that  physiologists 
should  not  attempt  by  their  science  to  prove  what  it  is  not  in 
its  nature  to  prove,  and  on  the  other  hand,  that  much  most 
unreasonable  jealousy  of  physiology  should  cease. 

But  what  is  of  most  consequence  for  my  present  purpose  is 
what  Mr  Mill  says  in  his  chapter  entitled  *  Ethology':  on  which, 
in  relation  to  the  laws  of  mind,  I  have  the  same  to  say  as  what 
I  have  just  said  about  the  laws  of  society. 

Mr  Mill  says*,  "  If  we  employ  the  name  Psychology  for  the 
**  science  of  the  elementary  laws  of  mind,  Ethology  will  serve  for 
"  the  subordinate  science  which  determines  the  kind  of  character 
"  produced,  in  conformity  to  those  general  laws,  by  any  set  of 
"  circumstances,  physical  and  moral.  According  to  this  definition, 
"  Ethology  is  the  science  which  corresponds  to  the  art  of  Educa- 
"tion".  It  seems  to  me  that  either  for  the  science  which  corre- 
sponds to  the  art  of  education,  or  else  for  that  art  in  such  a 
manner  that  the  'science*  becomes  something  in  comparison 
subordinate,  you  have  got  to  know  something  which  Mr  Mill 
takes  no  notice  of  here,  as  he  took  no  notice  of  the  same  kind  of 
thing  in  reference  to  society — ^namely,  the  kind  of  character  you 
want  to  produce.  It  is  very  well  to  know  what  circumstances 
will  produce  this  and  that  character,  but  it  is  subordinately  im- 
portant, i.e.  as  something  to  be  applied:  what  is  first  to  be 
discussed  is  the  comparative  merits  of  the  characters.  That  is, 
here  again  we  have  come  to  *  ideals':  art  goes  before  science. 
The  consideration  of  the  laws  by  which  character  is  formed  is 
something  comprised  in  a  wider  view  from  a  different  point,  viz. 
the  consideration  what  we  ought  to  do  and  be,  or  had  better  do 
and  be,  and  had  better  try  to  make  others. 

Ethology,  Mr  Mill  tells  us,  is  still  to  be  created :  and  in 
describing  how  it  should  be  studied^  he  apparently  considers 
that  it  takes  for  granted  what  are  the  'qualities  in  human 
beings  which  are  most  interesting  to  us,  as  facts  to  be  pro- 
duced, to  be  avoided,  or  merely  to  be  understood':  and  that 
what  it  studies  is,  'the  origin  and  sources  of  these  qualities, 

^  Page  528,  2nd  edit.  *  Page  534,  2nd  edit,  ad  fin. 


IX.] 


MILLS   LOGIC. 


199 


in  order  to  consider  what  circumstances  would  promote  or 
prevent  them'.  As  I  said  in  reference  to  Mr  Mill's  science 
of  society,  I  yield  to  none  in  my  estimation  of  this  ethology: 
but  there  seems  to  me  to  want  a  science,  so  to  call  it,  besides 
and  above  this  ethology,  to  discuss  and  tell  us  what  are  the 
qualities  which  are  thus  interesting.  In  fact  there  needs  a 
whole  science,  in  my  view,  to  explain  the  meaning  of  the  word 
*  interesting,'  as  it  is  thus  applied. 

In  his  later  editions,  Mr  Mill  has  added  something  at  the 
end  to  what  he  had  said  before  on  this  subject,  and  has  given, 
or  adopted  the  name  '  Teleology'  to  represent  a  science,  in  effect, 
such  as  I  have  just  described. 

This  science,  in  the  domain  of  practice  or  of  life,  must  be 
considered  I  suppose  to  correspond  to  what,  for  the  domain  of 
thought,  Mr  Mill  frequently  (as  I  have  mentioned)  alludes  to  at 
the  beginning  of  his  book  as  'the  higher  metaphysics',  and  to 
which  he  refers  various  problems  as  to  the- nature  and  grounds, 
for  instance,  of  belief,  which,  he  says,  it  does  not  belong  to  logic 
to  touch. 

All  that  I  have  said  amounts  to  this.  Mr  Mill,  as  belongs 
to  him  to  do,  limits  his  own  subject,  and  excludes  'Teleology* 
from  the  Logic  of  the  Moral  Sciences  as  he  excludes  'the  higher 
metaphysics'  from  the  logic  of  physical  science. 

This  being  so,  logic,  in  both  cases,  stands  as  a  subordinate 
science  to  a  higher  one:  but  subordinate,  in  the  two  cases,  in 
very  different  degrees.  Phenomenalist  logic,  as  I  have  called 
it,  will  stand  for  the  physical  world,  in  many  ways,  well  by  itself, 
and  one  of  the  reasons  why  I  am  writing  what  I  am  writing  is  to 
make  this  more  fully  appear.  I  have  endeavoured  to  show  that 
Mr  Mill  introduces  into  his  phenomenalist  logic  more  meta- 
physics than  he  need,  and  puzzles  the  simplicity  of  his  view  of 
it  with  notions  from  Sir  William  Hamilton  of  relativism  and  an 
unknowable  substratum.  If  the  simply  phenomenalist  view 
satisfies  any  one's  intelligence,  I  have  no  care  to  urge  him 
beyond  it.  Religion,  as  a  matter  of  positive  revelation,  has 
grounds  or  roots  in  that  as  well  as  in  philosophical  thought, 
however  I  may  think  that  without  this  latter,  it  is  exceedingly 
imperfect.  All  that  I  want  is  that  the  phenomenalist  should 
not  conclude  beyond  his  phenomenalism  from  data  that  belong 


.1 


>^l 


200 


MILLS  LOGIC. 


[chap. 


to  that  alone.  As,  for  instance,  that  he  should  not  be  under  the 
delusion  that  in  anatomizing  the  brain  and  accurately  watching 
states  of  nerve  he  is  getting  really  any  nearer  to  the  expressing 
and  explaining  in  terms  of  what  we  often  call  matter — i.  e.  in 
sufficiently  describing  by  any  language  of  motion  or  chemical 
change — that  which  Mr  Mill,  as  we  have  seen,  distinguishes  so 
justly  from  any  bodily  state,  the  feeling,  the  subjective  feeling, 
which  corresponds  to  the  bodily  states,  so  far  as  it  does  cor- 
respond to  them,  really  in  quite  another  world  of  notions,  and 
which  corresponds  to  phenomenal  fact,  not  as  actual  or  possible 
co-phenomenon  (except  to  the  very  small  extent  which  I  have 
described),  but  as  cast  and  mould,  mould  and  cast,  correspond 
the  one  to  the  other.  Let  the  phenomenalist  or  physiologist 
either  leave  this  subjective  feeling  alone,  or  else  take  his  stand 
fairly  within  it  and  look  at  things  from  that  point,  in  which 
case,  in  my  view,  he  will  find,  not  that  phenomenalism  absorbs 
it,  but  that  it  absorbs  phenomenalism.  That  is,  that  if  we  are 
to  say  one  or  the  other,  there  is  more  reason  in  saying,  that  the 
phenomenal  world  of  chemical  elements  and  mechanical  forces, 
as  we  suppose  it,  is  an  imagination  on  our  part  perhaps 
ungrounded,  than  that  God,  freewill,  the  notion  of  something 
which  we  ought  to  do  and  of  a  purpose  to  which  all  action 
should  be  directed,  are  so. 

The  phenomenalist  logic  then  may,  in  many  ways,  stand  alone 
without  metaphysics  if  we  are  satisfied  with  physical  pheno- 
mena and  speculation  about  them,  though,  as  I  hope  to  say 
shortly  more  fully,  I  do  not  think  it  is  by  the  use  of  it,  at  least 
as  commonly  understood,  that  physical  science  has  made  the 
advance  which  it  has,  and  I  think  that  the  supposed  scientific 
sterility  of  the  pre-Baconian  period  arose  quite  as  much  from 
want  of  imaginative  enterprize  and  speculation  as  from  want  of 
observation  and  experiment — firom  inability  to  digest  or  make 
anything  of  known  matter  of  fact  as  from  an  attempt  to  exer- 
cise the  intellectual  digestion  without  matter  of  fact  for  it  to 
act  on.  That  however  does  not  belonof  to  us  now,  and  is  rather 
a  matter  of  the  phenomenalist  logic  itself. 

But  the  logic  of  the  moral  sciences,  or  what  Mr  Mill  con- 
siders such,  will  not  at  all  in  the  same  degree  stand  alone  with- 
out Teleology,  and  the  attempt  to  make  it  do  so  is  almost 


IX.] 


MILLS   LOGIC. 


201 


certain  to  be  an  abuse  of  it  as  logic — that  is,  there  will  be  a 
supposition  more  or  less  express  and  distinct,  but  always  with- 
out reason  given  for  it,  that  it,  the  logic,  is  to  supply  us  with 
the  eiid  as  well  as  the  means.  This  is  precisely  what  I  under- 
stand as  the  proceeding  of  M.  Comte,  and  it  seems  to  me  the 
proceeding,  to  some  degree,  of  all  those  who,  like  Mr  Mill,  put 
moral  phenomena  in  the  universe  simply  by  the  side  of  physical. 
Suppose  '  sociology*,  a  science  of  the  logic,  and  treated  as  such 
by  Mr  Mill,  tells  us  that  it  is  a  fact  or  law  of  human  history 
that  at  a  certain  stage  of  civilization  man  passes  through  a  me- 
taphysical stage  in  which  he  talks  of  the  ideal  of  the  good  and 
right,  and  then  passes  out  of  this  into  another,  the  positivist,  in 
which  he  looks  at  all  this  as  figment — on  what  principle  are  we, 
individual  men,  to  infer  from  this  that  we  are  therefore  to  look 
upon  it  so  ?  The  logic  of  the  moral  sciences  is  to  guide  us  in 
sciences  of  the  fact — what  men  do  do — what  are  the  laws  by 
which  they  do  act — what  they  ought  to  do,  what  we  ought  to 
think,  belongs  to  the  supposed  teleology.  By  what  right,  and 
on  what  principle  of  logic,  so  to  call  it,  does  the  sociology  settle 
the  teleology  ? 

This  greater  importance  of  the  teleology  in  reference  to  the 
moral  sciences,  above  that  of  the  metaphysics  in  reference  to 
the  physical  sciences,  is  what  I  meant  when  I  said  that  in  the 
former,  art  came  before  science.  In  another  way  we  may  put 
it  thus :  the  moral  world  is  man's  creation :  the  phenomenal 
world  is  not.  All  the  uses  to  which  we  put  our  physical  know- 
ledge, all  our  inventions  and  applications,  are  a  small  thing 
compared  with  the  vast  amount  of  that  physical  knowledge, 
and  a  main  reason  why  they  are  so  large  as  they  are  is  that  we 
have  pursued  the  physical  knowledge  to  a  considerable  degree 
for  its  own  sake,  and  independent  of  them — science  first,  art 
aftei-wards.  But  sociology  and  ethology  (Mr  Mill's) — independent 
of  the  consideration  how  far  societies  and  individuals  have  been 
right  in  what  we  find,  by  these  sciences,  they  do  do  and  have 
done — are  matters  of  quite  a  different  sort  of  importance — they 
will  not  at  all  stand  in  this  way  as  simple  sciences  of  fact,  even 
if  we  can  conceive  them  so.  The  truth  is,  that  the  conception 
of  them  is  not  clear — History  and  Teleology  are  mixed  in  the 
conception  of  each  science — sciences  of  this  kind  are  not  truly 


1 


>'l 


202 


MILL  S   LOGIC. 


[chap.  IX. 


II 


II 


analogous  to  phenomenal  and  physical  science :  so  far  as  they  are 
really  carried  out  according  to  the  conception  (I  speak  of  course 
mainly  of  sociology  and  of  the  other  only  as  a  supposed 
parallel  of  it)  they  will  be  a  bad  mixture  of  history  and  specula- 
tion, the  former  rendered  inaccurate  by  the  latter,  the  latter  not 
recognizing  its  proper  position,  and  trammelled  by  the  former, 
instead  of  hand-in-hand  with  it. 

Since  adding  to  his  later  editions  what  I  have  been  noticing, 
Mr  Mill  has  published  his  'Utilitarianism.'  On  this  I  say  just 
so  much,  in  illustration  of  the  present  matter,  that  it  seems  to 
me  to  show  how  logic,  that  is,  a  principle  of  decision  among  con- 
flicting claims  to  truth,  is  wanted  for  the  Teleology,  more  than 
for  the  subordinate  science.  Without  saying  here  the  least 
whether  Mr  Mill  is  right  or  not  in  considering  *  human  happi- 
ness' to  be  the  great  end  or  ideal,  I  look  only,  and  that  for  a 
moment,  at  the  principles  upon  which  he  considers  himself 
to  be  justified  in  saying  so.  Roughly,  these  seem  to  me  to  be, 
that  with  human  happiness  thus  taken  morality  can  be  made 
an  inductive  science,  and  that  happiness  is  what  men  do  desire. 
Suppose  both  these  things  to  be  so,  I  ask  myself,  do  they  esta- 
blish what  Mr  Mill  wants,  that  human  happiness  is  that  to 
which  men  ought  to  direct  all  their  effort,  or  their  highest  effort? 
that  it  is  the  proper  end,  the  end  to  be  chosen  in  preference  to 
other  conceivable  ends  ?  Have  we  in  this  a  real  Teleology,  or 
merely  the  same  thing  which  I  have  just  noticed  in  M.  Comte  ? 
Are  fact  and  ideal  rightly  put  together?  I  do  not  the  least 
here  want  to  press  upon  Mr  Mill,  being  quite  willing  to  go  on. 
Can  anybody  make  a  Teleology,  or  put  fact  and  ideal  properly 
together  ?  Does  not  this  carry  us  back  to  the  hopeless  discus- 
sions of  Ethics  long,  long  ago  ?  Perhaps  it  may :  all  my  point 
is,  that  here  are  the  real  difficulties  of  Ethics,  and  that  Mr  Mill's 
sociology  and  ethology  will  only  solve  subordinate  ones. 


CHAPTER   X. 
DR  WHEWELL'S  PHILOSOPHY  OF  SCIENCK 


>   I 


>| 

I  -  'I 


I  COME  now  to  Dr  Whewell's  series  of  works,  originally  con- 
stituting in  conjunction  'The  Philosophy  of  the  Inductive  Sci- 
ences', which  he  has  since  amplified  and  made  into  three 
works,  the  'History  of  Scientific  Ideas',  the  'Philosophy  of  Dis- 
covery*, and  the  'Novum  Organon  Renovatum'. 

As  I  understand  the  arrangement,  the  first  of  the  three 
above-mentioned  works  or  portions  may  be  considered  as  the 
philosophy  of  the  History  of  Science,  which  history  Dr  Whewell 
had  first  investigated,  and  exhibited  in  detail,  as  a  basis  (cer- 
tainly much  the  fittest  basis)  for  all  speculation  about  the 
advance  of  the  science,  or  Real  Logic. 

The  last  two  of  the  three  works  may  be  considered  as  upon 
Scientific  Method,  the  former  being  a  History  of  such  Method, 
i.  e.  of  the  views  which  have  been  entertained  about  it,  and  of  the 
manner  in  which  men  actually  have  proceeded  in  advancing, 
or  trying  to  advance,  knowledge  :  the  last  being  the  Philosophy 
of  this  History  (so  to  call  it)  which  of  course  is  the  exhibition  of 
the  proper  method,  the  Real  Logic  itself,  for  which  all  the  rest 
is  foundation  and  preparation:  the  actual  'Novum  Organon 
Renovatum'. 

We  have  then  two  histories,  or  a  double  Rationale,  of  Hu- 
man Thought:  the  one  of  Human  Thought  about  the  universe, 
which  is  the  history  of  the  progress  in  Science  itself:  the  other 
of  Human  Thought  about  Real  Logic  (as  I  have  called  it),  that 
is,  about  the  way  in  which  knowledge  ought  to  be  pursued  and 
advanced. 

We  each  one  of  us  learn,  and  the  human  race  learns,  and 
between  the  two  processes  there  must  be  some,  and  may  be  a 
very  great,  analogy.    Real  Logic,  as  I  have  described  it,  belongs 


'  \i 


\' 


f 


»mm^m0m 


204 


DR   WHEWELLS 


[chap. 


V 


V 


i 


to  both.  So  far  as  there  is  analogy,  the  history  of  learning 
by  the  i*ace  must  be  that  of  learning  by  the  individual,  'writ 
large';  and  must  aid  the  understanding  of  the  latter  in  the 
same  kind  of  way  in  which  Plato  expected  (rightly  or  wrongly) 
that  politics  would  help  the  understanding  of  morals.  And  the 
growth  of  knowledge  in  the  individual,  on  the  other  hand,  is 
something  conveniently  at  hand  for  us  continually  to  notice, 
and  within  a  compass  possible  for  us  to  notice :  it  may,  on  its 
side,  greatly  help  our  understanding  of  the  other.  In  fact, 
however,  in  the  manner  which  I  have  noticed,  this  learning  by 
the  individual  is  not  a  thing  of  which  the  rationale  has  been 
traced  out  very  accurately;  as  happens  with  things  near  at 
hand  to  us,  we  do  not  know  much  about  it. 

Dr  Whewell's  starting  point  is  then  in  many  respects  the 
same  as  that  of  those  Philosophers  of  the  Human  Mind,  who 
describe,  according  as  they  conceived  it,  the  growth  of  indi- 
vidual thought  and  experience.  As  by  that  practice  of  the 
limbs  and  senses  which  results  in  greater  sharpness  and  skill  in 
the  use  of  them,  coupled  with  activity  of  mind  and  of  reason, 
we  learn  individually  to  see  and  think  of  things  about  us  in  the 
manner  in  which  we  all  of  us  do,  so  the  race — by  that  continual 
use  of  sense  in  fresh  and  fresh  observation,  which  is  experience, 
and  the  continued  improvement  of  sense,  so  to  call  it,  by  the 
invention  of  instruments,  all  this  also  coupled  with  continual 
activity  of  mind,  in  reasoning,  speculating,  and  discussing — 
has  learnt  (as  represented  by  its  instructed  and  scientific  in- 
tellects) to  see  and  think  of  things  in  the  way  in  which  it  now 
does,  and  which  we  describe  as  its  present  stage  of  knowledge 
or  scientific  attainment. 

Dr  Whewell's  book,  though  not  starting  like  Mr  Mill's  from 
the  science  of  Logic,  yet  starts  with  what  I  describe  as  a  more 
logical  point  of  view.  That  is,  his  book  is  a  view,  substantially, 
of  change  in  human  thought :  not  a  view,  as  I  have  described 
Mr  Mill's  to  be,  of  the  objective  world  such  as  we  may  be  sup- 
posed, standing  by,  to  see  or  know  it.  The  history  of  the 
growth  of  human  thought  about  the  universe  forms  a  sub- 
ject of  consideration  in  some  respects  analogous  to  the  past 
history  of  the  universe  itself,  and  to  some  minds  it  may  be 
quite  as  interesting.    It  is  a  history  not  likely  to  have  sug- 


X.] 


PHILOSOPHY   OF   SCIENCE. 


205 


gested  itself  as  a  special  subject  of  consideration  before  our 
time :  and  in  our  time,  what  has  made  it  do  so  has  been  with- 
out doubt  one  science  in  especial,  astronomy.  The  ideas  of 
human  scientific  progress  would  probably  not  have  been  what 
they  are,  or  even  like  what  they  are,  if  it  had  not  been  for  that 
science,  assumed,  with  more  or  less  reason,  as  a  type  of  the 
others. 

This  change  of  human  thought  about  the  universe  is  a 
matter  of  fact,  quite  as  much  as  the  universe  itself  is,  and  it  is 
a  matter  of  fact  which  is  a  more  convenient  starting  point  for  a 
Real  Logic  than  a  description  (or  anything  of  the  nature  of 
a  description)  of  the  universe  itself  and  the  facts  of  it,  because 
the  manner  in  which  we  must  describe  the  universe  is  a  vary- 
ing manner  according  to  this  change  of  thought  about  it,  and  it 
ought  to  come  last  in  our  logic,  rather  than  first.  In  spite  of 
Mr  Mill's  desire  to  escape  from  notions  to  things,  his  Real 
Logic,  it  seems  to  me,  is  more  notional  than  Dr  Whewell's. 
There  seems  to  me  to  be  in  Dr  Whewell's  book  more  of  what 
I  might  call  an  open  air  effect,  more  of  contact  with  living 
thoughts  of  men  and  with  nature  and  actual  fact.  A  descrip- 
tion of  the  universe,  or  what  amounts  to  such,  set  before  a 
view  of  the  logic  of  our  knowing  it,  can  hardly  avoid  either 
being  notional,  or  else  anticipating  what  should  come  afterwards, 
and,  so  far  as  the  logic  may  really  act  practically,  hindering  the 
growth  of  knowledge.  Mr  Mill's  old  logic  of  substances  and 
attributes,  and  his  newer  logic  of  co-existences  and  uniformities, 
are  safe  from  the  latter  of  these  dangers,  but  still  they  seem  to 
me  (it  may  be  prejudice)  less  in  harmony  with  actual  pheno- 
menal nature  before  us,  and  with  the  way  in  which  men  have 
fruitfully  and  profitably  speculated  about  it,  than  Dr  Whewell's 
language  and  way  of  speaking.  This  is  what  I  should  mean 
by  describing  the  latter  as  more  real,  less  notional,  than  the 

former. 

The  view,  such  as  Dr  Whewell  has  given  it,  of  the  growth  of 
knowledge  in  the  human  race,  is  invaluable,  not  only  in  respect 
of  our  understanding  this  knowledge  in  the  race,  and  the  best 
way  of  our  pushing  it  further,  but  in  respect  of  the  comparison 
between  the  growth  of  knowledge  in  the  race  and  in  the  indi- 
vidual.    I  have  said  on  a  former  occasion,  that  the  growth  of 


h' 


■\ 


206 


DR   WHEWELLS 


[chap. 


X.] 


PHILOSOPHY   OF   SCIENCE. 


207 


H 


I 


'I 


knowledge  is  a  perpetual  self-correction  as  well  as  a  perpetual 
aggregation  or  self-enlargement.  Seeing  little  is  seeing  wrong. 
If  we  are  to  talk  of  real  stages  in  an  advance  of  knowledge,  one 
character  by  which  the  reality  of  any  such  stage  may  be  known 
is  that  it  is  a  mistake  in  regard  of  what  follows  it  in  the  same 
manner  in  which  it  is  a  truth  in  regard  of  what  has  preceded  it: 
if  it  is  not  afterwards  itself  corrected  by  being  included  in  a 
broader  view,  in  the  same  manner  as  it  has  itself  corrected  by 
inclusion  what  has  gone  before  it,  it  is  out  of  the  line  of  advance 
of  knowledge:  a  deduction  or  analogical  conclusion,  but  not 
fruitful :  its  fruitfulness  is  in  its  correctibility. 

Our  first  act  of  knowledge  then  is  not  only  a  seed  or  cell  in 
which  is  contained,  seminally  or  as  in  a  focus  of  aggregation, 
all  that  comes  after,  not  only  like  a  word  of  a  language,  what 
could  not  exist  or  be  in  the  mind  without  the  supposition  of 
the  existence  of  the  whole  which  it  belongs  to,  but  it  is  a  real, 
though  utterly  insufficient,  indistinct,  even  mistaken,  look  at 
the  entire  universe.  I  am  not  at  all  here,  it  is  to  be  observed, 
speaking  the  words  of  Dr  Whewell,  though  I  am  saying  some- 
thing which  it  seems  to  me  his  view  suggests  :  and  I  am  doubtful 
whether  the  bearing  of  what  I  have  said  would  be  on  his  side 
in  the  question  of  '  inconceivability '  as  a  test  of  falsehood,  and  of 
the  difference  between  our  knowledge  of  space,  &c.  and  our 
other  knowledge.  I  observe  these  things  noiv,  in  the  view  of 
the  interest  of  human  knowledge  as  a  course:  and  this  interest 
is  doubled,  when  we  compare  the  course  in  the  individual  and 
the  course  in  the  race.  It  is  interesting  to  think  in  what  re- 
spects the  learning  of  the  individual  to  see  a  distant  object,  and 
the  learning  by  the  race  to  see,  for  so  it  virtually  is,  what  is  the 
real  motion  of  the  heavenly  bodies,  are  and  are  not  in  analogy. 
The  one  and  the  other  is  a  continued  correction  of  first  (and 
even  of  second,  third,  &c.)  impressions  by  putting  them  together 
in  conjunction  with  a  continual  activity  of  mind  in  respect  of 
them :  there  is  in  the  former  all  that  Dr  Whewell  calls  *  colli- 
gation of  facts*  and  *  induction  of  conceptions'  in  a  rudimentary 
state :  in  these  earlier  stages  with  changes  of  consciousness  so 
rapid  that  we  cannot  follow  them :  whereas  each  one  of  the 
corresponding  changes  of  thought  or  view  in  later  science  may 
be  the  work  of  generations,  involving  observation  heaped  upon 


observation,  and  the  trying  fruitlessly  conceptions  after  concep- 
tions. So  far  there  is  first  a  tolerably  complete,  and  then  a 
very  imperfect,  analogy :  in  what  follows  there  is  no  analogy  at 
all :  namely,  that  the  first  lands  us  in  a  normal  or  habitual 
state  of  thought  and  view  from  which  all  the  latter,  to  what- 
ever extent  carried,  does  not,  and  does  not  seem  likely  to,  dis- 
lodge us.  This  is  a  circumstance  which,  apparently,  depends 
upon  the  relation  between  the  time  which  we  take  to  learn 
anything  and  the  duration  of  our  individual  existence.  We 
learn  to  say  that  we  see  the  distance  between  a  tree  a  mile  off 
and  another  many  times  that  distance,  but  I  suppose  we  should 
hardly  say  that  we  saw  the  sun  to  be  further  off  firom  us  than 
the  moon  is,  though  we  know  this  fact  as  perfectly,  and  have 
learnt  it  really  in  very  much  the  same  manner.  In  the  same 
way  we  never  feel,  and  I  suppose  never  shall  feel,  that  we  turn 
round  the  sun  or  round  the  centre  of  the  earth,  though  various 
things  which  we  say  we  do  feel  or  know  by  sensation  come  to 
our  knowledge  in  really  as  distinct  and  intellectual  a  manner  as 
these  facts  do.  I  mention  this  analogy  and  want  of  analogy 
between  the  course  of  knowledge  in  the  individual  and  in  the 
race,  because  the  comparison  between  the  one  and  the  other 
seems  to  me  in  its  truth  one  of  the  most  important,  and  in  its 
error  one  of  the  most  deceiving  and  injurious,  of  comparisons 
possible. 

I  have  mentioned  that  I  say  veiy  little  about  the  merit  of 
books,  one  reason  for  which  is,  that  my  view  of  merit  of  this 
kind  is  rather  my  own,  and  what  in  the  common  talk  of  criti- 
cism might  not  be  accepted  as  praise.  In  any  branch  of  know- 
ledge which  is  advancing,  a  view  or  a  book  without  something 
of  incompleteness,  and  undigestedness,  and  consequently  mistake, 
would  seem  to  me  as  little  to  be  desired  as  full  developed  man- 
hood in  a  growing  boy ;  and  in  estimating  the  value  of  a  book 
I  look  quite  as  much  at  the  openings  which  it  makes  in  front 
of  it  for  fresh  knowledge,  which  are  not  unfrequently  in  the 
way  of  mistake,  as  at  the  points  which  it  definitely  secures. 
And  besides  this,  I  have  a  grounded  disbelief  in  that  view  of 
the  nature  of  the  advance  of  knowledge  which  is  implied  by  the 
Baconian  expression  *  intellectus  sibi  permissus  *,  used  in  a  de- 
preciating sense.   I  do  not  want  to  have  the  intellect  unshackled 


'N 


hf> 


II  '. 


fi" 


r'  I 


208 


DR   WHEWELLS 


[chap. 


from  sloth,  and  prejudice,  and  misapplied  authority,  to  be  re- 
shackled  by  a  perhaps  mistaken  logic.  This  makes  me  look  with 
less  interest  upon  Real  Logic  as  a  means,  method,  or  instniment 
of  discovery  than  many  would.  But  it  makes  me  look  with  more 
interest  upon  it  as  a  rationale  of  what  man  has  actually,  from  time 
to  time,  thought.  I  have  not  the  smallest  belief  in  Bacon's  having 
reformed  the  methods  of  discovery  (believing  rather  that  if  he 
had  had  any  success  in  this  way,  in  the  manner  he  wished,  it 
would  have  been  most  calamitous  for  science) :  nor,  to  the  extent 
of  my  knowledge,  which  is  not  great,  should  I  judge  with 
Dr  Whewell  that  a  reform  is  wanted  in  this  respect  now\  But 
I  think  that  the  history  of  the  advance  of  human  thought 
about  the  universe  is  only  inferior  in  interest  and  profitable- 
ness>  if  it  is  that,  to  the  history  of  the  universe  itself,  and  that 
the  vigorous  manner  in  which  Bacon  conceived  this  advance, 
as  possible  when  not  actual,  sets  him  in  the  highest  intellectual, 
as  much  as  the  earnest  manner  in  which  he  urged  it  on  sets 
him  in  the  highest  moral  rank.  What  Bacon  had  to  look  back 
upon  was  not  in  many  respects  satisfactory,  and  he  misconceived 
it  by  making  it  worse  than  it  was.  Dr  Whewell  looks  back 
upon  a  far  brighter  retrospect,  and  has  the  advantage  of  Bacon 
in  the  absence  of  such  misconception.  This  advantage  and  the 
tone  of  mind  belonging  to  it,  runs  through  the  book.  Dr 
Whewell  shows  us  how  the  human  mind  has  acted  in  the 
advance  after  truth,  how  its  very  mistakes  have  been  of  advan- 
tage to  it,  and  how  great  men  have  trodden  down  the  way 
which  may  after  them  be  the  more  easily  followed.    Bacon  had, 

1  "  It  will  be  found,  I  think,"  says  Dr  Whewell,  "that  some  of  the  doctrines  now 
"  most  widely  prevalent  respecting  the  foundations  of  truth  are  of  such  a  kind  that  a 
'  •  Reform  is  needed.  The  present  age  seems,  by  many  indications,  to  be  called  upon 
*'  to  seek  a  sounder  Philosophy  of  Knowledge  than  is  now  current  among  us."  {ffist, 
of  Scientijic  Ideas,  Vol.  i.  p.  7.)  I  suppose  this  refers  to  positivist  or  ultra-pho- 
nomenalist  doctrines,  and  if  so,  I  heartily  sympathize  with  Dr  Whewell's  efforts 
against  them.  But  to  know  what  philosophy  of  knowledge,  or  whether  any,  is 
current  among  us,  seems  to  me  to  be  a  very  hard  task,  and  the  desire  to  find  it  out 
is  one  of  the  things  which  has  prompted  my  present  employment.  What  Dr  Whewell 
assigns  as  the  task  of  the  present  age  seems  to  me  to  be  the  duty  of  every  age. 
To  improve  the  philosophy  of  our  age  in  the  direction  which  seems  to  us  the  right 
one  is  the  duty  of  all  who  can  do  it — but  to  understand  it  to  such  a  degree  as  to  be 
able  to  judge  that  it  ought  to  be  reformed,  seems  to  me  very  difficult.  How  great 
is  the  complication,  for  instance,  of  all  the  controversies  ^ith  which  I  am  dealing. 


X.] 


PHILOSOPHY   OP   SCIENCE. 


209 


whether  necessarily  or  not,  the  far  less  enviable  task  of  a  con- 
demner,  critic,  corrector. 

In  my  view  then  of  Dr  Whewell's  book,  I  consider  it  a  good 
Real  Logic,  because  it  does  exhibit  the  action  of  the  human  mind 
in  large  as  the  same,  in  its  great  features,  with  its  action  in  small, 
and  because  it  recognizes  not  only  as  interesting,  but  as  im- 
portant in  the  past  history  of  the  human  race,  that  varied 
experience,  that  feeling  after  truth,  that  approach  towards  it  at 
once  by  way  of  mental  activity  and  variety  of  experience  of 
fact,  which  is  the  same  way  as  that  in  which  we  gain  our  simpler 
and  earlier  knowledge.  With  full  justice  done,  in  this  way,  to 
the  value  of  past  imagination  and  even  error,  there  is  no  fear 
of  too  shackling  or  restraining  an  art  of  logic  for  the  future. 

Logic  of  all  kinds,  Real  Logic  included,  is  likely  to  be  in 
some  difficulty  as  to  its  way  of  dealing  with  first  principles  of 
belief  or  knowledge — that  is,  whether  it  shall  include  within  itself 
notice  of  them,  or  not.  Mr  Mill  professes  not  to  do  so — dealing 
only  with  logic  of  inference:  some  difficulties,  we  have  seen, 
arise  from  this.  Dr  Whewell  goes  to  the  bottom — does  deal 
with  them\ 

We  may  view  knowledge,  as  I  have  said,  from  the  logical  or 
from  the  phenomenalist  point  of  view.  The  pure  phenomenalist 
point  of  view  is  what,  in  speaking  of  Mr  Mill,  I  have  called  the 
supposition  of  presence  with  things,  or  '  adstance ',  on  our  part — 
in  this  case  notice  of  our  faculties  of  knowing,  or  our  manner  of 
thinking,  does  not  enter  into  the  consideration:  there  is  sup- 
posed the  universe  with  its  facts :  it  so  happens  that  it  is  we, 
with  and  by  our  faculties  of  knowledge,  who  know  them :  but 

^  Mr  Mill,  I  think,  is  rather  too  free  in  his  references  to  a  supposed  *  meta- 
physics*, to  which  the  consideration  of  certain  fundamental  difficulties  belongps. 
That  is  to  say,  he  does  to  a  certain  extent  deal  with  such  difficulties,  to  such 
an  extent,  it  seems  to  me,  as  to  preclude  himself  from  saying  with  reason  that 
they  belong  to  a  different  subject  from  that  which  he  treats  of.  In  my  view,  as  I 
have  mentioned,  philosophy  is  all  one  subject,  and  the  reference  of  a  difficulty  from 
one  to  another  supposed  branch  of  it  is  one  of  the  most  tempting  subterfuges  for 
bad  philosophers,  and  with  good  ones,  like  Mr  Mill  and  Sir  William  Hamilton,  ia 
likely  to  lead  to  mistake  and  insufficient  consideration.  Of  course  there  is  a  diffi- 
colty  in  this :  no  one  book  can  contain  everything.  But  the  reference  of  things  to 
a  different  subject  is  a  shelving  them,  different  from  a  simple  declining,  for  what- 
ever reason,  to  enter  upon  them.  I  think  Dr  Whewell's  view  faces  difficulties  more 
fully  and  thoroughly,  in  this  respect,  than  Mr  Mill's. 

14. 


Vl\ 


210 


DR   WHEWELL  S 


[chap. 


SO  far  as  the  view  of,  the  universe  (or  the  proper  physics)  is 
concerned,  it  might  be  a  different  being  with  and  by  different 
faculties  who  did  so.  The  facts,  not  the  knowledge  of  them, 
make  here  the  important  consideration. 

The  logical  point  of  view  is  that  of  correctness  of  thought. 
So  far  as  we  say  *  correctly'  of  thought  about  things,  we  must 
be  aware  that  by  *  things '  here  we  only  mean  a  formless  non- 
ego  ;  the  thought  is  not  about  the  really  existing  things  until, 
or  except  so  far  as,  it  is  correct:  i.e.  there  must  be  supposed 
something  distinct  from  ourselves  which  we  think  about,  but 
from  this  point  of  view  it  is  no  more  than  an  assumed  object, 
or  rather  subject,  in  one  sense  of  the  word  subject,  of  our 
thought :  we  have  no  business  with  any  supposition  as  to 
what  it  may  be,  or  may  not  be,  in  itself:  knowledge  of  it 
is  the  thinking  rightly  about  it,  or  investing  it  with  the  at- 
tributes which  the  laws  of  our  thought  induce  us  or  compel 
us  to  invest  it  with.  Any  supposed  real  essence  of  itself  is  in 
this  view  left  out  of  account  exactly  in  the  same  manner  as  any 
specialty  of  the  faculties  of  knowledge  is  left  out  of  account 
by  the  phenomenalist. 

It  will  be  remembered  that,  using  the  word  '  sensation'  to 
express  the  whole  of  our  consciousness,  from  the  most  agitating 
feeling  of  nervous  or  concrete  pleasure  or  pain  to  the  merest 
abstraction  of  thought,  I  supposed  a  scale  of  this,  in  which 
relations  such  as  those  of  space  would  concern  about  the  middle. 
The  logical  view  takes  notice  first  of  the  top  or  thought  end  of 
this  scale,  and  proceeds  downwards,  considering  what  it  meets 
with  as  of  less  and  less  intellectual  importance,  till  the  lower 
part  will  be  neglected  altogether,  or  treated  as  that  unreason 
or  nonsense  which  it  is  the  business  of  the  higher  part  to  con- 
vert into  knowledge.  And  each  higher  part,  as  I  said,  is  forrU 
to  what  is  below  it. 

The  phenomenalist  view,  so  far  as  it  deals  with  the  scale  at 
all,  begins  with  the  lower  end,  as,  for  it,  the  most  real.  It  then 
proceeds  upwards,  attributing  more  and  more  of  an  empty, 
non-material,  visionary  character  to  what  it  in  succession  meets 
with :  till  that  which  the  logicalist  begins  with,  that  which 
constitutes  what  I  have  called  the  thinghood  of  things,  is  with 
the  phenomenalist  unnoticed  or  treated   as  a  delusion.     The 


I 


X.] 


PHILOSOPHY   OP    SCIENCE. 


211 


thing  is,  with  him,  a  co-eocistence  (say),  in  regard  of  which  any 
supposition  of  reason  for  the  co-existence,  anything  beyond  its 
being  a  fact,  is  unmeaning. 

In  my  view,  it  is  a  difference  in  manner  of  thinking  rather 
than  a  difference  in  absolute  truth,  whether  we  speak  of  the 
whole  scale  or  of  any  part  of  it  as  belonging  to  ourselves  or  as 
belonging  to  things,  as  part  of  the  subject,  or  as  the  object, 
of  knowledge.  Our  faculties  of  knowing  and  the  things  which 
we  know  are  plainly  in  adaptation,  however  arising,  the  one  to 
the  other,  and  I  do  not  see  what  principles  we  have  to  go 
on  in  saying  what,  in  the  act  of  knowledge,  belongs  to  the 
one  and  what  to  the  other.  Except  so  far  as  this;  I  have 
represented  sensation  as  a  scale:  so  far  as  we  speak  of  subject 
and  object  about  it,  we  might  represent  it  by  two  converging 
and  meeting  lines.  Subject  and  object,  at  the  lower  or  feeling 
end  of  the  scale,  are  widely  separated,  there  being  between 
them  (I  mean  the  subject  and  object  of  intelligence)  matter  or 
body,  phenomenalism,  which  is  the  vehicle  of  their  communica- 
tion :  our  body  on  the  one  side,  extraneous  matter  on  the  other. 
Higher  in  the  scale  they  converge,  till  in  thought  they  meet. 
Let  us  say,  e.g.  as  Dr  Whewell  would  be  inclined  to  say,  that  in 
an  organized  animal  there  is  plainly  indicated  purpose  or  a  final 
cause.  Now  here  it  seems  to  me  an  identical  way  of  speaking, 
and  only  different  in  words,  whether  we  say  that  the  purpose 
is  a  fact  of  the  organization,  or  a  thought  which  we  with  reason 
have  about  it.  If  we  disputed  whether  it  was  one  or  the  other 
we  should  be  disputing  only  about  words.  Being  a  thought  in 
any  case,  it  is  just  the  same  thing  whether  we  consider  it  em- 
bodied in  the  organization  or  existing,  with  reason  to  exist,  in 
our  minds.  Lower  down  in  the  scale,  if  we  discuss  whether 
whatever  it  is  that  we  are  speaking  about  is  in  the  subject  or  in 
the  object,  in  ourselves  or  in  things,  it  is  more  than  a  question 
of  words,  though  less  than  a  question  of  absolute  truth  ;  it  is  a 
difference  of  view.  We  mean  different  things,  though  we  might 
mean  either  not  incorrectly.  This  I  conceive  to  be  the  case, 
for  instance,  as  to  space. 

If  there  is  to  be  any  meaning  of  importance  in  our  saying 
that  space  is  subjective  and  not  objective,  an  idea  or  form  of 
thought  as  distinguished  from  a  fact  of  objective  reality,  we 

14—2 


14 


I 

1-  s 


VV 


v\ ' 


212 


DR  WHEWELLS 


[chap. 


must  mean  that  we  could  conceivably,  though  not  in  our  par- 
ticular and  necessarily  spatial  conception,  think  of  things  in 
a  way  other  than  spatial,  or  with  some  form  of  thought  re- 
placing that  of  space.  Unless  with  some  conception  or  quasi- 
conception  of  this  kind,  the  saying  that  space  is  subjective,  is 
otiose  and  resultless.  If  we  separate  space  as  subjective  from 
certain  other  notions  about,  or  qualities  of,  the  universe  which 
we  consider  objective,  we  must  mean,  if  we  mean  anything, 
that  we  could,  conceivably,  apply  our  spatial  thoughts  to  ano- 
ther sort  of  objective  universe,  and  that,  similarly,  another  set 
of  beings,  differently  constituted  from  us,  might  look  at  our 
objective  universe  with  other  than  spatial  thoughts.  I  do  not 
think  we  are  prepared  to  mean  all  this.  Our  knowledge  all 
goes  together.  The  universe  is  what  we,  in  the  con*ect  course 
of  our  thought,  make  for  ourselves,  if  we  so  like  to  consider  it, 
and  again,  oiu:  knowledge  is  not  knowledge,  unless  it  is  know- 
ledge of  what  actually  is,  independent  of  us,  in  the  universe. 

I  have  said  that  the  thinking  differently  of  the  different 
portions  of  the  scale  of  sensation  is  of  cardinal  importance  :  but 
the  dividing  them  between  subject  and  object  I  do  not  think  is 
so :  and  for  the  same  reason  for  which  I  dare  not  say  of  any 
such  division  that  is  not  true  *,  I  do  say  that  it  is  unimportant, 
namely,  because  we  have  nothing  to  go  upon  in  judging  of  its 
correctness.  The  analogy  of  the  subjective  and  objective* relation 
with  the  relation  between  thought  and  the  sensive  organs  of  our 
body  is  not  applicable,  and  will  not  suggest  any  division  of  this 
kind  so  far  as  it  is,  or  rather  would  not  if  it  were.  Our  know- 
ledge, subjectively,  is  different  kinds  of  sensation  or  conscious- 
ness, giving  us  no  idea,  or  rather  precluding  idea,  of  any  analogy 
of  parts  of  it  with  material  organs  of  sense.  And  in  the  case 
of  the  sensive  organs,  what  we  have,  as  I  have  many  times 
said,  independent  of  the  correspondent  stream  of  conscious- 
ness, which,  to  us,  is  out  of  relation — is  only  contemporaneous 

^  I  have  preserved  on  purpose  the  gradual  change,  or  rather  perhaps  increasing 
fixedness,  of  view,  presented  by  these  pages,  which  were  not  written  entirely  in  the 
order  in  which  they  appear.  It  will  be  observed  that  I  speak  a  little  more  strongly 
on  this  in  what  will  shortly  follow.  But  I  think  the  cause  of  trutfa^  which  is  all 
that  I  care  for,  is  best  served  by  leaving  what  I  say  as  I  here  leave  it.  The  reader 
may  perhaps  think  I  am  right  here,  and  have  gone,  in  what  follows,  too  far.  If  so, 
periiaps  his  own  thoughts  will  conduct  him  afterwards  where  mine  have  me. 


X.] 


PHILOSOPHY   OF   SCIENCE. 


213 


— with  what  goes  on  materially  or  phenomenally,  is  the 
same  thing  on  the  one  side  as  on  the  other.  If  it  could  be 
imagined  that  at  this  moment  all  light  ceased  to  exist  and 
the  laws  of  optics  were  forgotten,  but  eyes  remained,  and, 
in  some  mysterious  manner,  a  possibility  of  anatomizing 
them :  and  not  only  of  anatomizing  them,  but  of  knowing  all 
their  possible  movements  and  affections :  I  conclude  that,  were 
the  intellect  acute  enough,  a  considerable  portion  of  the  laws 
of  optics,  the  theory  of  a  now  absent  light,  might,  from  a 
knowledge  of  them,  be  recovered.  The  constitution  of  our 
body  involves  and  implies  the  existence  of  light  as  much  as 
light  involves  the  existence  of  eyes  for  the  knowledge  of  it. 
Just  •as  our  body  fits  the  phenomenal  universe,  so  under  the 
important  qualification  which  I  mentioned  just  now  (as  to  the 
different  circumstances  of  knowledge  in  the  different  parts  of 
the  scale),  does  our  mind  or  consciousness  the  wider  or  whole 
objective  universe \  Knowledge  is  the  link-  or  communication 
between  them :  all  of  it  is  objective,  or  all  subjective,  as  we 
describe  it. 

The  difference  between  parts  of  the  scale  of  consciousness  is 
not  of  this  nature,  nor  is  it  well  described  by  saying  that  a  part 
of  our  knowledge  is  gained  by  sensation,  a  part  not.  If  we 
mean  by  sensation  something  distinct  from,  and  opposed  to, 
thought  and  idea,  no  part  of  our  knowledge  is  due  to  it :  if  we 
mean  by  it  something  which  must  be  superadded  to  thought  or 
idea,  or  must  mingle  with  it  and  go  with  it,  in  respect  of  each 
particular  of  our  knowledge  which  is  more  than  inference  or  de« 
duction  from  what  we  have  known  before,  then  all  such  know- 
ledge is  due  to  it. 

These  matters  are  difficult  to  write  about,  and  I  have  some 
hesitation  in  saying  to  what  extent  Dr  Whewell  is  right,  and  to 
what  extent  wTong,  in  his  '  Fundamental  Antithesis  *  of  know- 
ledge. Knowledge  is  a  relation  between  two  members,  commonly 
called  by  philosophers  the  'subject'  and  'object'  of  it,  which  re- 
lation we  may  call  an  antithesis  if  we  like,  though  we  must  be 
careful  in  doing  so.  And  there  are  various  other  terms  in  use  as 
to  knowledge,  which  will  admit  of  being  compared  together,  and 

1  Our  thought  outflanks  (if  we  may  so  speak)  or  comprehends,  all  phenomenal 
possibility,  which,  on  the  other  hand,  does  not  outflank  or  comprehend  it. 


V\> 


I 


II        1 


l.i> 


i 


J' 


I 


! 


214 


DR   WHEWELLS 


[chap. 


exhibited  in  a  form  more  or  less  what  we  may  call  antithetical. 
The  question  as  to  this  is,  whether  we  gain  any  advantage  from 
so  exhibiting  them,  and  considering  them  various  forms  of  the 
same  antithesis.  There  is  one  character  which  seems  to  belonof  to 
most  of  Dr  Whe well's  exhibited  fonns  of  this  antithesis,  and 
which  is  connected  with  what  I  have  said  of  him,  viz.  that  his 
view  really  proceeds  from  the  logical  point  of  starting  :  this  is, 
that  it  is  generally  on  the  objective  side  (so  just  now  to  call  it) 
that  the  member  of  the  antithesis  is  indistinct.  That  this  is  the 
case  with  the  term  '  object '  itself  is  not  his  fault,  and  belongs  to 
the  consideration  that  the  relation  of  *  subject'  to  'object'  is  a 
logical  relation  (by  which  I  mean  one  in  which  '  object '  is 
viewed  from  'subject',  or,  in  other  words,  in  which  'subject* 
represents  the  viewer  of  the  relation) :  '  object '  therefore  is  a 
word  of  very  various  signification  according  to  the  view  which 
we  take  of  knowledge,  and  the  relation,  '  subject '  to  '  object  * 
is  not  one  antithesis,  but  many,  while  one  signification  of 
'  object '  may  well  stand  quite  as  much  in  antithesis  with  another. 
In  the  antitheses,  '  thoughts  and  things ',  '  ideas  and  sensations  *, 
'theories  and  facts',  which  in  certain  respects  do  doubtless  repre- 
sent a  single  antithesis,  it  is  to  be  observed  that  it  is  the  former 
member  which  is  distinct,  the  latter  which,  as  standing  in  oppo- 
sition to  it,  is  indistinct.  The  former  member  of  the  antithesis 
in  each  case  is  the  clearly  viewed  creating  and  active  power, 
the  latter  in  each  case  represents  something  mentally  created, 
out  of  whatever  material,  by  the  former,  and  then  when  thus 
created,  it  stands  in  antithesis  to  the  former,  its  creator,  as 
material  for  this  to  create  or  produce  something  more  with. 
This  is  what  I  mean  by  saying  that  the  latter  member  in  each 
antithesis  is  indistinct  as  compared  with  the  former.  Each  lat- 
ter member  involves  the  former,  and  not  vice  versl 

I  do  not  at  all  complain  of  this,  because  I  think  that  in  the 
main  it  represents  the  truth,  but  what  I  doubt  about  is  the 
desirableness  of  exhibiting  it  as  a  distribution  of  the  various 
things  or  circumstances  which  enter  into  knowledge  into  two 
portions,  the  one  supposedly,  we  will  say,  subjective,  the  other 
objective.  I  see  the  supposedly  subjective  portion,  but  I  do  not 
see  the  objective.  On  the  objective  side  I  see  something  as 
truly  subjective  as  what  is  on  the  other  side  :  not  indeed  so 


X.] 


PHILOSOPHY    OF   SCIENCE. 


215 


purely  so,  but  still  so  much  so  as  that  it  ought  not  to  be  put  in 
this  way  in  antithesis  to  the  other.  It  seems  to  me  that  the 
test  of  our  being  able  to  exhibit  the  ideas  or  supposedly  sub- 
jective side  of  knowledge  by  themselves  and  independently  is 
our  being  able  to  do  the  same  by  that  which  stands  in  contrast 
with  them.  And  this  we  cannot  do.  A  thing,  as  it  is  probable 
the  etymology  of  the  word  indicates,  and  as  Dr  Whe  well  himself 
most  clearly  describes,  is  made  what  it  is,  and  understood  for 
what  it  is,  by  thought — there  is  no  antithesis  between  thought 
and  it,  but  only  between  thought  on  the  one  side  and  on  the 
other  whatever  the  thing  would  be,  if  it  would  be  anything, 
without  essence,  thinghood  or  reality.  In  the  same  way  with  a 
'  sensation ',  a  term  used  by  Dr  Whewell,  as  generally  in  the  last 
century,  in  a  very  dangerous  manner.  A  sensation  as  it  must 
here  be  understood,  so  far  as  it  carries  with  it  attention  to  it 
or  distinct  consciousness  of  it,  has  got  thought  mixed  with  it 
abready,  as  much  as  '  a  thing '  has.  The  only  thing  which  can 
he  opposed  to  thought  or  idea  in  this  respect  is  the  crude  blind 
undistinguished  feeling,  so  far  as  we  can  suppose  such,  with 
the  attention  to  it  abstracted*.  On  the  subject  of  the  an- 
tithesis between  'theory'  and  'fact',  which  is  the  fruitful  and 
it  seems  to  me  really  valuable  one  of  Dr  Whewell's  antitheses, 
he  has  himself  spoken  fully,  and  described  how  the  now-recog- 
nized fact  is  really  just  and  verified  theory. 

I  do  not  think  that  we  can  really  separate  our  knowledge 
into  its  material  on  the  one  side  and  on  the  other  its  form  or 
that  which  makes  it  knowledge,  or  in  other  words,  and  invert- 
ing the  order,  into  ideas  on  the  one  side  and  something  which 
is  not  ideas  on  the  other:  except  so  far  as  I  have  said,  that 
we  may  consider  each  higher  part  in  the  scale  of  (my)  sensation 
(or  increasing  abstractness)  to  stand  in  the  relation  of  '  form '  to 
the  part  below.  The  attempt  to  divide  our  knowledge  thus,  so 
far  as  it  has  meaning,  and  it  may  have  a  great  deal,  is  really 
only  a  proceeding  in  the  logical  method,  and  studying  the  man- 
ner in  which  the  continual  addition  of  thought  to  thought  pro- 
duces the  growth  of  knowledge.     What  thought  in  the  first  in- 

1  I  have  so  put  it,  but  even  this  cannot  properly  be  so  opposed,  but  only  the 
corporeal  approximation,  contact, 'communication,  which  I  have  several  times  re- 
ferred to. 


'f^ 


'I 


! 


'fi 


216 


DR   WHEWELLS 


[chap. 


stance  is  added  to  or  superinduced  upon,  is  something  which  it 
seems  to  me  we  cannot  in  any  logical  manner  (that  is,  by  any 
term  having  anything  to  do  with  knowledge)  describe,  and  just 
in  the  same  manner  as  we  cannot  describe  this,  I  do  not  think 
we  can  describe  the  particulars  of  thought  itself  as  separated  from 
this,  t.  e.  ideas.  And  I  think  we  are  in  error  if  we  do  attempt 
to  describe  them  thus  distinct  and  separate,  and  consider  them 
as  thus  described,  the  criterion  of  truth.  So  far  as  Dr  Whewell 
does  this,  I  differ  with  him,  and  consider  that  with  his  right 
view,  that  advance  in  knowledge  is  the  growth  of  correct 
thought,  he  mingles  a  wrong  one,  that  this  correct  thought 
can  be  exhibited  separately  from,  and  set  antithetically  against, 
the  universe  of  fact :  that  under  the  name  of  *  ideas  *  it  can  be 
looked  upon  as  something  native  to  our  mind  in  a  manner  in 
which  something  else,  also  a  part  of  knowledge,  is  not  native ; 
and  as,  in  virtue  of  this  nativeness,  the  proper  truth. 

What  ideas  are  superinduced  upon  is,  in  the  first  instance, 
vague,  undistinguished  feeling,  undeveloped  consciousness  ^  and 
everything  which  is  superinduced  upon  this  is  idea,  if  anything 
is.  In  saying  then  that  we  ought  not  to  consider  with  Locke 
that  we  have  an  idea  of  everything  we  know,  but  that  we  have, 
for  instance,  an  idea  of  space,  language  in  no  respect  wrong  to 
use,  what  I  should  understand  would  be,  that  the  knowledge 
which  we  have  of  space  is  in  this  respect  different  from  the 
knowledge  which  we  have,  e.g.  of  heat,  that  it  is  much  more 
abstract  and  less  accompanied  with  feeling,  more  of  the  nature 
of  thought  and  less  requiring  comparison  or  experience,  which 
is  what  I  have  meant  by  considering  it  as  high  on  my  scale: 
but  that  the  one,  unless  it  had  thought  or  attention  superin- 
duced on  the  experienced  pleasure  or  pain,  would  not  be  know- 
ledge, and  that  the  other  would  be  at  best  but  a  bare  possibility 
that  an  idea  might  arise,  if  we  think  that  anything,  till  the  idea 
did  arise  on  the  occasion  of  some  movement,  for  example,  or 
pressure :  and  this  being  so,  it  is  a  mere  arbitrary  difference  of 
language  to  say  that  our  knowledge  of  heat  arises  in  conse- 
quence, not  on  occasion,  of  the  application  of  a  hot  iron  to  the 
hand,  but  that  our  knowledge  of  space  arises  on  occasion,  not  in 
consequence,  of  the  conscious  movement  of  our  hand  from  one 

^  See  the  note  in  last  page. 


X.] 


PHILOSOPHY  OF   SCIENCE. 


"217 


point  to  another.  Both  are  sensations,  so  far  as  we  call  our 
knowledge  by  the  name  of  sensation :  both  are  facts,  so  far  as 
we  say  that  it  is  of  facts  that  we  have  knowledge. 

The  best  meaning  perhaps  which  can  be  given  to  the  saying 
that  knowledge  higher  on  my  scale  is  more  of  the  nature  of 
thought  than  that  which  is  lower,  is,  that  any  single  experience, 
so  to  call  it,  of  the  former  is  endlessly  fertile  in  the  region  of 
thought,  and  a  similar  experience  of  the  latter  very  little  so. 

One  single  perception  of  space,  and,  were  our  thought  in 
strength  powerful  enough,  we  need  no  more  experience,  and  the 
whole  of  geometry  might  be  evolved.  How  far  the  difference  in 
fertility  of  an  experience  here  and  e.g,  in  respect  of  heat  de- 
pends upon  the  constitution  of  our  minds  and  upon  the  consti- 
tution of  things  respectively,  is  what,  it  seems  to  me,  we  cannot 
determine,  because  the  relation  of  our  mind  in  general  and 
things  in  general,  of  subjective  and  objective,  what  ahsolutely 
belongs  to  the  one  and  what  to  the  other-^since  they  are  given 
to  us  only  in  conjunction  and  no  irov  cTew,  nothing  besides,  is 
given  to  us — is  what,  as  I  have  many  times  said,  we  do  not 
know.  It  is  here  that  arise  the  ideas  of  necessity  and  con- 
tingency^. Truth  connected  in  thought  with  other  truth  we 
call  'necessary':  truth  connected  with  other  truth  as  being 
matter  of  similar /eeZiw^,  or  experience  involving  little  of  thought, 
we  call '  contingent'.  We  say,  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  conceive 
the  former  otherwise  :  the  latter  we  readily  may.  But  the  tiro 
in  geometry  is  as  readily  able  to  conceive  the  angles  of  a  triangle 
being  equal  to  three  right  angles  as  to  two,  and  the  pre- 
Newtonian  astronomer  was  as  readily  able  (I  suppose)  to  con- 
ceive the  law  of  the  central  force,  if  there  were  such,  being  the 
inverse  cube,  as  the  inverse  square :  the  tiro  arrives  at  his  after 
knowledge  by  way  of  thought  or  understood  demonstration,  the 
astronomer  has  arrived  at  his  by  the  way  of  thought  coupled 
with  manifold  obsei'vation,  i.e.  by  induction:  the  former  now 
cannot  possibly  conceive  that  the  thing  he  knows  could  ever  by 

^  'Contingent  truths*,  says  Dr  Whewell,  *are  truths  which  it  happeni 
(contingit)  are  true',  (as  that  a  lunar  month  contains  30  days).  This  is  making 
the  conveying  term  too  significant,  fur  Dr  Whewell  would  hardly  like  the  length 
of  the  lunar  month  to  be  called  '  an  accident'  of  the  imiverse,  which  in  this  yiew  it 
might.    Hist  of  Scknt.  Ideas,  Vol.  i.  p.  25. 


218- 


DR  WHEWELLS 


[chap. 


1'^ 


any  possibility  have  been  otherwise,  the  latter  is  most  likely  in 
a  mixed  state  of  mind,  and  to  the  extent  to  which  the  truth  he 
knows  depends  upon  past  observation  he  can  see  various  ways 
in  which  it  might  have  been  otherwise,  to  the  extent  of  which 
it  depends  upon  past  reasoning  and  thought  he  cannot.  Neces- 
sity, the  inconceivability  of  the  contrary,  depend  upon,  and  are 
an  expression  for,  seen  reason.  Whether  the  reason,  the  neces- 
sity, is  in  our  understanding  or  in  the  things,  is  what,  so  far  as 
anything  which  we  are  now  speaking  about  goes,  we  cannot  tell. 

Inconceivability  of  the  contrary  is  only  so  far  a  test  of  truth, 
as,  with  thought,  we  can  see,  more  or  less  distinctly,  the  reason 
of  the  inconceivability. 

The  mark  of  the  clearness  and  the  firm  hold  with  which 
we  possess  our  knowledge  is  our  being  able,  and  our  not  being 
able,  at  the  same  time,  though  in  different  respects,  to  conceive 
the  thing  (or  the  truth  as  to  the  thing)  being  different  to  what 
it  is.  Such  truth  as  we  hold  in  the  way  of  fact  is  held  the 
better  and  the  more  really  for  our  imagining  various  ways  in 
which  the  fact  might  be  otherwise,  for  it  is  its  being  what  it  is, 
in  contradistinction  to  its  being  any  of  these,  that  is  what  we 
do  hold,  and  the  lively  hold  of  the  fact  itself  is  really  the  percep- 
tion of  the  distinction.  But  when  in  addition  to  the  thing  being  as 
it  is,  we  are  able  to  understand  why  it  is  as  it  is,  all  supposition 
that  it  might  have  been  other  than  it  is  is  of  course  excluded. 

As  the  human  moral  activity,  to  speak  in  homely  language, 
does  not  know  its  own  mind,  but  aims  at  rest  with  a  restlessness 
which  will  not  allow  of  acquiescence  in  it:  so  the  human  in- 
tellectual activity  does  not  seem  to  know  what  it  wants  in  its 
eagerness  at  once  both  for  reason  of  things  and  for  ultimate 
fjEict  to  rest  in.  Its  desire  after  reason  of  things  will  not  let  it 
rest  in  anything  as  ultimate  fact,  at  the  same  time  that  its 
earnest  desire  for  a  basis  to  its  reasonings  makes  it  most  eager 
to  suppose  such  fact. 

Mr  Mill  and  Dr  Whewell  discuss  much  the  value,  as  a  test 
of  truth,  of  this  *  inconceivability  of  the  contrary '.  Mr  Mill,  whose 
notion  of  knowledge  is  as  I  have  said  the  supposition  of  fact, 
and  then  the  supposition  of  a  knowledge  of  it,  holds  it,  as  on 
that  view  he  should,  as  a  false  or  unimportant  one.  Dr 
Whewell,  whose  view  of  the  advance  of  knowledge  is  the  sup- 


X.] 


PHILOSOPHY    OF   SCIENCE. 


219 


position  of  the  human  mind  judging  about  things  more  and 
more  correctly,  thinks,  as  is  natural,  the  opposite  way. 

I  do  not  like  the  applying  of  the  test  of  inconceivability  of 
the  contrary  as  it  is  often,  perhaps  indeed  usually,  applied,  to 
supposed  first  principles.  Argument  in  this  case  is  too  often 
only  reiteration  on  the  one  side,  with  counter-assertion  on  the 
other.  These  first  principles  are  supposed  to.  be  held  as  fact: 
and  as  I  have  said,  we  really  hardly  hold  a  thing  as  fact  at  all, 
clearly  and  forcibly,  unless  we  make  an  effort  to  suppose  the 
thing  other  than  it  is:  in  knowledge  of  fact,  a  main  part  of 
knowing  what  a  thing  is  is  the  knowing  what  it  is  not.  And 
can  we  set  any  limit  to  human  conceptiveness  or  imagina- 
tiveness ?  Can  we  say  of  anything  that  no  mind  of  whatever 
power  in  this  respect  can  possibly  conceive  the  contrary  of  it  ? 
We  may  say  it  cannot  reasonably  conceive  the  contrary,  but 
then  it  is  not  conceivability,  but  reasonable  conceivability,  in 
fact  reason,  which  determines  the  truth.    • 

I  am  rather  straying,  but  still  what  I  say  has  some  reference 
to  Dr  Whewell's  book.  He  is,  it  seems  to  me,  most  eminently 
right  in  describing  the  course  of  human  knowledge  to  be  what  I 
will  call  a  theorizing  on  facts,  and  the  mental  generating,  in 
this  way,  of  neW  fact  to  be  theorized  on.  The  view  does  not 
necessitate  the  expression  of  it  being  in  what  I  have  called 
the  logical  direction :  we  might  describe  it,  if  we  liked,  as  the 
proceeding  from  the  looking  at  or  knowing  a  fact  or  facts  to 
the  looking  at  or  knowing  a  fact  more  general :  but  the  advan- 
tage of  the  logical  or  Dr  Whewell's  view  is  the  bringing  into 
relief  the  activity  of  the  mind  in  the  looking  at  this  second 
more  general  fact.  The  facts  do  not  present  themselves  to  the 
mind  in  succession,  but  the  new  fact  comes  into  knowledge  as 
the  result  of  a  very  various  activity  on  the  mind  s  part,  which 
Dr  Whewell  well  describes.  I  think  that  the  description  of  the 
process  as  the  superinducing  an  idea  or  conception  upon  the 
facts  and  so  making  them  into  a  unity  to  be  marked  by  a  term 
is  an  admirable  one;  but  it  is  only  for  the  nonce,  for  this  pro- 
cess, that  the  idea  is  to  be  considered  as  belonging  to  the  mind, 
the  facts  to  objective  nature  :  the  facts  belong  to  the  mind,  for 
they  are  nothing  but  verified  theories :  the  idea,  so  far  as  it  is 
correct,  belongs  to  objective  nature,  for  as  soon  as  we  have 


!i.V 


220 


DR   WHEWELLS 


[chap. 


X.] 


PHILOSOPHY   OP   SCIENCE. 


221 


V' 


u 


II 


^ 


verified  it  and  found  it  answer  the  facts  we  shall  consider  it  a 
new  fact  of  objective  nature,  to  be  itself  theorized  upon.  But 
I  do  not  see  that  there  is  any  reason  to  join  this  view  with  the 
other,  not  necessary  to  it,  that  there  are  certain  ideas  which  we 
can  enumerate  and  distinctly  exhibit  belonging  to  the  mind,  -  as 
facts,  things,  or  however  we  describe  them,  belong  to  objective 
nature.  The  two  views,  instead  of  holding  well  together,  hold 
ill  together.  Just  as  right  theory  is  the  side  turned  towards  us 
of  what,  turned  the  other  way,  is  natural  fact,  so  ideas,  even  the 
highest  and  most  abstract,  are  the  side  turned  towards  us  of 
what  equally,  turned  the  other  way,  exists  in  the  universe  as 
fact,  if  we  choose  rather  so  to  look  at  them  and  describe  them  : 
were  it  not  so,  they  would  not  be  true  ideas. 

A  more  important  antithesis  than  that  between  some  things 
or  circumstances  as  subjective  and  others  as  objective,  is  the 
contrast  between  knowledge  as  of  fact  and  knowledge  by  way  of 
reason.  What  Dr  Whewell  says  is  valuable  as  it  is  on  account 
of  its  full  recognition  of  this.  Each  fact  involves  in  itself  an 
abundance  of  thought — has  an  abundance  of  form :  but  so  far  as 
it  is  known  as  fact  only,  it  is  isolated:  on  account  of  this  ab- 
sence of  connexion  it  might  be  conceived  as  being  variously 
otherwise:  we  only  know  as  matter  of  fact  (as* we  call  it)  that 
it  is  what  it  is.  We  want  to  cease  to  be  able  to  conceive  it  as 
what  might  be  otherwise,  and  to  this  end  to  bring  it  into  con- 
nexion with  other  facts,  to  view  it  as  part  of  a  wider  fact:  we 
make  a  theory,  a  provisional  or  supposed  fact,  which  will  in- 
clude it  and  other  facts,  and  see  how  far  the  truth  of  this  is 
consistent  with  the  entire  truth  of  the  facts.  When  we  can 
make  the  suppositions  which  want  actuality  fit  with  the  actu- 
ality which  wants  more  of  form,  order,  connexion  to  be  given  to 
it,  we  have  got  really  valuable  knowledge. 

I  have  said  that  the  attempt  to  exhibit  ideas  which  are 
purely  subjective  seems  to  me  the  same  soi*t  of  thing  as  would 
be,  on  the  other  side,  the  attempt  to  exhibit  facts,  so  we  will 
call  them,  which  were  purely  objective  and  unmixed  with 
thought  (if  we  might  call  this  '  objective  *).  I  will  notice  now 
one  way  in  which  the  doing  the  one  and  the  other  of  these 
things  would  have  something  of  a  similar  result.  The  purely 
subjective  and  objective  would  be  with  great  difficulty  brought 


into  relation  with  the  advance  of  knowledge.  What  is  the 
nature  of  the  advance,  for  instance,  in  respect  of  the  idea?  As  the 
advance  goes  on,  is  the  mind  in  a  better  state  as  to  its  manner 
of  holding  the  idea,  or  in  a  worse,  or  in  neither,  it  being,  so  far 
as  the  idea  is  concerned,  in  the  same  state,  but  the  advance  in 
knowledge  consisting  in  the  advancing  perception  of  the  re- 
lation of  the  idea  to  that  which  is  not  idea? 

I  shall  not  enter  into  this,  only  making  an  observation  or  two 
about  it.  The  state  of  the  mind,  as  Dr  Whewell  recognizes,  in 
its  advance,  is  quite  different  as  its  advance  has  reference  to 
different  ideas  among  those  which  Dr  Whewell  describes.  Space, 
for  example,  exists  clearly  in  the  mind  in  the  first  instance,  is 
developed  into  geometry,  which  is  variously,  almost  endlessly,  ap- 
plicable to  phenomena  and  in  aid  of  observation :  but  observation 
adds  nothing  to  it,  either  in  the  way  of  amount  or  clearness.  The 
case  is  exactly  opposite  in  reference  to  the  idea  of  'polarity': 
this  the  mind  has  no  hold  of  at  the  first  or  the  slightest  sug- 
gestion of  it:  only  with  far  advanced  observation  it  shows 
itself  In  the  case  of  the  idea  of  resemblance,  what  happens 
is  that  it  takes,  with  advance  of  knowledge,  the  character  of 
a  different  idea:  the  growing  definiteness  attaching  to  it  is  an 
alteration  of  its  nature,  this  definiteness  being,  in  reality,  an 
increasing  perception  of  law,  order,  reason,  meaning,  underly- 
ing the  resemblance,  and  substituting  itself  in  the  mind  for 
it,  making  the  sciences  which  Dr  Whewell  has  called  '  classifi- 
catory '  continually  less  and  less  so,  and  more  and  more  what 
may  be  loosely  called  *  physiological '.  As  the  idea  of  '  resem- 
blance' is  thus  a  temporary  one,  so  the  idea  of  'a  medium* 
seems  to  me  a  mistaken  one,  mistaken  both  in  a  logical  and 
phenomenal  point  of  view,  and  to  disappear  for  this  reason. 

The  great  ideas  of  '  substance '  and  of  *  cause '  are  the  most 
difficult.  With  regard  to  the  former,  I  should  have  thought 
that  chemical  speculations  and  researches  as  to  the  constitution 
of  matter  were  not  likely  to  be  benefited  by  a  comparison  of 
the  object  of  their  search  with  the  very  difficult  and  doubtful 
notions,  in  which  to  disentangle  logic  from  supposed  pheno- 
menal truth  is  scarcely  possible,  which  the  philosophical  use  of 
the  word  *  substance '  involves  \    K  it  is  really  an  idea,  it  seems 

^  Upon  this  idea  of  '  substance ',  as  well  as  upon  that  just  mentioneel,  of  '  a 


I'*  ii 

M 


u 


II  Vi 


I' 


\i 


h 


I: 


222 


DR   WHEWELLS 


[chap. 


to  me  that  the  advance  of  knowledge  consists  in  the  entire 
transforming  it,  and  gradually  substituting  a  different  one. 

'Cause'  Dr  Whewell  seems  to  look  at  in  four  manners. 
'  EflScient  cause  *,  which  is  what  is  connected  with  the  sciences 
of  force:  'final  cause',  which  is  what  is  connected  with  the 
sciences  of  organization:  'historical  cause',  which  is  what  is 
connected  with  the  cetiohgical  sciences,  or  those  which  concern 
the  history  and  origin  of  things :  and  what  I  may  call  '  physical 
caused  the  consideration  of  which  is  what  differences  certain 
sciences  or  branches  of  science  (astronomy,  e.g.)  as  'physical', 
from  certain  others  relating  to  the  same  subject  and  which 
are  called  '  formal '. 

I  may  observe  that  '  cause  *,  as  looked  upon  by  Mr  Mill  and 
phenomenalists,  is  a  relation  of  time,  and  little  else,  in  the 
main  like  the  third  view  above ;  cause  being  simply  antecedent 
with  certain  considerations  indeed  about  it,  in  some  respects 
similar  to  those  which  belong  to  the  fourth  view  above.  And 
I  will  observe  in  connexion  with  this,  that  the  viewing  of 
things  as  much  as  possible  in  the  relation  of  time  is  what, 
substantially,  the  phenomenalist  view  amounts  to,  and  it  is 
because  this  view  of  them  is  felt  as  a  poor  and  insufficient 
view  that  the  phenomenalist  view  is  unsatisfactoiy.  The  phe- 
nomenalist's  knowledge  of  nature  is  the  knowledge  of  the  history 
of  nature.  In  that  view,  our  presence  or  adstance,  as  I  have 
called  it,  is  in  face  of  what  we  are  bid  to  call  a  series  of 
changes,  without  our  being  able  to  know  what  it  is  that 
changes,  or  why  the  changes  take  place,  in  any  other  sense  of 
the  why^  than  this,  what  previous  change  any  present  change  is 
the  result  of.  The  thought  of  '  cause ',  in  the  fourth  view  above, 
is  the  asking  the  question,  why  the  changes  take  place,  in  the 
hope  of  an  answer  other  than  historical.  The  asking  the  ques- 
tion is  in  reality  the  theorizing  about  the  change  or  fact,  and 
the  bringing  it,  so  far  as  the  theorizing  succeeds,  under  a 
broader  and  more  general  fact :  the  quest  of  cause  then,  in  this 
fourth  view  of  it,  is — as  instructed  or  trained  by  the  advance  of 
knowledge — the  desire  of  generality  and  simplicity,  the  tendency 
towards  them  in  our  thought,  the  looking  for  them,  and  expec- 

medium',  I  cannot  enter  into  Dr  Whewell's  view  at  all.     I  will  append  in  a  future 
cbapter«ome  remarks  upon  each  of  them. 


'    l! 


% 


X.] 


PHILOSOPHY   OF   SCIENCE. 


223 


tation  of  finding  them,  in  nature.  The  tendency  to  proceed 
from  formal  science  to  physical  is  the  same  as  that  to  proceed 
from  knowledge  by  way  of  fact  to  knowledge  of  reason,  and 
they  are  two  ways  of  describing  the  general  'nisus'  towards 
advance  in  knowledge. 

The  view  of  'substance',  and  these  various  views  of  'cause*, 
seem  to  me  attempts  (but  I  do  not  think  any  attempt  can  be  suc- 
cessful), to  exhibit  as  distinct  subjective  ideas,  that  thought  which 
belongs  to  the  upper  part  of  my  scale  of  knowledge.  I  most 
thoroughly  believe  in  or  think  one  thing,  which  appears  to  me 
stateable  with  equal  truth  in  either  of  two  ways :  namely,  that 
there  is  in  the  universe,  besides  chemical  constitution,  besides 
solidity,  shapes,  and  forces,  something  more  abstract  or  as  I  should 
call  it  higher  than  these,  I  mean  order,  law,  meaning,  principle, 
purpose,  however  we  may  describe  it :  we  are  present  or  look  on 
at  this  as  much  as  at  the  other  things :  our  thought  is  as  real  a 
sensive  power  for  this  purpose  as  our  feeling  is  for  sweetness  or 
bitterness.  It  appears  to  me  only  to  represent  the  same  truth  if 
we  say  from  the  other  side,  that  we  have  sensations  which  we  call 
the  tasting  and  smelling  things :  that  we  have  sensations  again 
more  refined  about  them,  by  some  named  ideas,  and  which  we 
describe  as  the  handling  and  measuring  things :  and  again  that 
we  have  thoughts  about  them  (higher  sensations  or  intuitions) 
certainly  to  be  called  ideas,  as  namely,  that  they  have  substance 
or  real  existence,  that  there  is  final  cause  or  purpose  about  them, 
and  many  more. 

But  so  far  as  these  things  are  to  be  considered  as  in  the  uni- 
verse, they  would  be  by  no  means  the  first  things  that  we  should 
find  out :  and  I  do  not  think  therefore  that  we  ought  to  begin 
science  with  laying  them  down,  or  even  attempting  to  do  so. 
I  think  that  if  this  came  to  affect  our  Real  Logic  as  an  art,  i.  e. 
to  influence  our  action  for  the  future,  in  attempts  to  discover, 
it  would  be  injurious,  as  Bacon's  method  of  a  very  different 
kind  would  have  been  injurious.  And  I  think  it  injures  our 
Real  Logic  as  a  science  by  confusing  it. 

Dr  Whewell  proposes  his  book  to  us  as  a  Novum  Organum 
for  our  time.  It  is,  looked  at  simply  as  an  Organum  or  guide 
to  scientific  thought,  not  only  more  suited  to  our  time,  but 
better  than  the  Baconian  Organum — I  say  nothing  about  the  two 


I  I 


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224 


DR   WHEWELLS 


[chap. 


works  in  any  other  point  of  view.     It  seems  to  me  to  have  far 
more  truth  in  it  for  all  and  for  any  time  :  no  wonder  perhaps — 
there  has  been  not  only  Bacon,  but  many  others,  to  learn  from. 
But  in  reality  it  is  a  new  *Traite  de  la  Mdthode* — I  mean  the 
thought  of  it  descends  (of  its  actual  suggestion  I  know  nothing) 
quite  as  much  from  the  manner  of  thought  of  Descartes  as  from 
that  of  Bacon.     This  is  a  vast  advantage.    Bacon  and  Descartes 
were  two  contemporary  intellectual  reformers  with  exactly  op- 
posite views,  and  the  looking  at  them  seems  to  me  of  the 
greatest  value  in  regard  of  all  our  view  of  such  reform :  the 
general  positive  recommendations  of  each  were  I  think  in  their 
different  lines  equally  wanted  and  have  been  since  equally 
valuable :  the  more  particular  recommendations,  or  more  special 
reform,  have  been  nugatory.    The  scholastic  stagnation  of  mind, 
so  far  as  it  existed,  wanted  a  Descartes  to  shake  it  up  quite  as 
much  as  a  Bacon.    When  Bacon  urged  attention,  still  attention, 
and  ever  repeated  attention,  to  nature,  to  fact,  to  observation,  to 
experiment,  he  was  most  right  and  useful :  but  so  far  as  he  said, 
You  must  give  less  attention,  in  order  for  this,  to  books  and  to 
reflection  or  self-concentrated  thought  (idle  cobwebs  of  the  brain) 
he  spoke  without  force  or  meaning.   What  was  wanted  in  regard 
of  books  and  thought  was  exactly  the  same  which  was  wanted  in 
regard  of  observation,  not  at  all  less  attention  to  the  one  and  the 
other,  but  a  wiser,  better  applied,  more  real  attention,  which  would 
really  leave  abundance  of  time  for  the  utmost  amount  of  observa- 
tion of  nature  and  fact,  and  would  really  help,  instead  of  hinder- 
ing it.    In  respect  of  this  wiser  and  better  reflection  or  thought, 
Descartes  was  the  apostle  of  it,  as  Bacon  was  of  better  and  more 
abundant  observation.     To  complete  the  trio,  there  should  have 
existed  at  the  same  time  some  man  doing  in  a  special  way  what 
was  being  done  by  many,  and  was  a  work  quite  as  important  as 
either  of  the  others,  namely,  urging  the  wiser  and  more  thorough 
study  of  hooks,  better  criticism :  the  intellectual  revival  of  that 
time  was  an  awaking  at  once  to  more  close  study  of  nature — ^to 
more  accurate  and  methodical  thought — and  to  better  criticism, 
and  each  one  of  them  aided  the  other.     The  careful  criticism 
and  study  of  what  Aristotle  really  said  probably  aided  the  ad- 
vance of  science  better  than  the  putting  him  into  the  fire  would 
have  done,  in  spite  of  Bacon's  denunciations  of  him. 


X.] 


PHILOSOPHY    OF   SCIENCE. 


225 


t 


Dr  Whewell  then  it  seems  to  me  joins  with  Bacon's  view  of 
the  important  thing  about  truth  being  its  closeness  to  fact, 
Descartes'  view  of  its  being  clearness  and  distinctness  of  thought, 
and  is  eminently  right  in  doing  so\  He  has  mixed  with  this 
what  seems  to  me  error,  but  I  think  it  is  his  view  on  the  whole 
which  is  the  right  and  the  fruitful  one. 

Any  discussion  of  the  particulars  of  his  Method  of  Real  Logic 
does  not  concern  my  present  purpose,  which  has  only  reference 
to  his  general  principles  or  view. 

I  shall  proceed  however  in  another  chapter  to  enter  a  little 
more  into  detail  on  some  of  my  points  of  difference  given  above, 
and  to  examine  one  or  two  passages  which  embody  his  views. 

1  I  am  not  at  all  aware  that  Dr  Whewell  thinks  as  highly  of  Descartes  as 
I  do,  and  he  does  not  I  think  say  very  much  about  him.  He  himself  {Phil,  of 
Discovery,  p.  162),  attaches  the  great  reform  of  scientific  method  to  Bacon, 
considers  that  Descartes  set  himself  speculatively  in  opposition  to  it,  but  that 
still  he  and  his  disciples  did  attend  very  much  to  experiment  and  to  the  known 
facts,  that  consequently  his  physical  philosophy  {then  the  most  important  part 
of  natural  philosophy)  was  the  best  then  current,  and  he  came  to  be  considered 
as  the  great  hero  of  the  overthrow  of  Aristotle.  At  the  same  time  the  de- 
ductive character  of  his  philosophy,  his  rushing  to  general  principles  and  deducing 
conclusions  from  them,  his  deducing  effects  from  causes  rather  than  causes  from 
effects— this  was  a  wrong  side  of  his  doctrine  which  gave  nevertheless  to  it  much 
of  its  charm,  a  'gratissimus  error'  to  human  nature.  When  one  reads  this,  one 
asks  one's  self,  what  really  is  the  position  of  the  two  great  controvertists  in  this 
matter  of  our  day,  Dr  WheweU  and  Mr  Mill,  as  to  Bacon  and  Descartes?  They 
both  put  forward  the  name  of  Bacon,  they  disagree  nevertheless  in  their  view  of 
him,  and  neither  of  them  really  much  follow  him-do  they  take  from  Descartes* 
manner  of  thinking,  the  one  his  '  clear  ideas',  the  other  his  '  deduction'  ?  And  do 
they  each,  more  or  less,  consider  that  the  other  is  in  this  '  setting  himself  in  oppo- 
aition  to  the  reform  which  science  needs'?  I  give  no  opinion  about  this,  only 
observing  how  very  difficult  it  is  to  enter  into  a  controversy  and  see  the  real 
bearing  of  it. 


16 


49 


T'  -Ml 


hi 


SI 


I 


•■ 


CHAPTEE  XI. 

THE  FUNDAMENTAL  ANTITHESIS  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

I  SHALL  proceed  to  put  Dr  Whewell's  view  and  mine  in 
conjunction  in  this  way  :  by  quoting  various  passages  from  him 
which  indicate  his  view,  and  expressing  my  agreement  with 
some  of  them,  my  difference  from  others. 

At  the  basis  then  of  all  knowledge  Dr  Whewell  considers 
there  is  that  fundamental  antithesis  which  I  have  already  to 
a  certain  degree  discussed.  It- is  constant  and  essential,  but 
without  a  fixed  and  permanent  line  dividing  its  members  :  it  is 
variously  modifiable,  and  variously  expressible. 

The  simplest  expression  of  the  antithesis  is  the  opposition  of 
'things'  and  *  thought*. 

Upon  these  I  begin  as  Dr  Whewell  ends :  he  says,  after 
describing  the  antithesis,  as  a  conclusion  to  his  description, 
"  Thoughts  and  things  are  so  intimately  combined  in  our  know- 
"  ledge,  that  we  do  not  look  upon  them  as  distinct.  One  single 
"act  of  the  mind  involves  them  both,  and  their  contrast  dis- 
"  appears  in  their  union.  But  though  knowledge  requires  the 
"  union  of  these  two  elements.  Philosophy  requires  the  separa- 
"  tion  of  them,  in  order  that  the  nature  and  structure  of  know- 
"  ledge  may  be  seen*".  The  first  two  sentences  I  hold  :  in  the 
third,  I  do  not  accept  the  description  of  *  things'  and  *  thoughts* 
as  *two  elements'  of  knowledge  :  and  so  far  as  Philosophy  sepa- 
rates them,  I  hold  that  it  presents  us  with  two  aspects  of  know- 
ledge from  different  sides,  not  with  two  portions  of  it.  It 
seems  to  me,  that  as  soon  as  we  begin,  in  the  manner  which 
Dr  Whewell  here  describes,  to  make  the  separation  he  speaks 
of,  his  language  will  no  more  stand  examination  than  that  of 
Sir  William  Hamilton  and  of  Mr  Mill. 

** Things",  says  Dr  Whewell,  "are  something  different  from 
"  ourselves  and  independent  of  us ;  something  which  is  without 

*  Hist,  of  Scientific  Ideas,  VoL  I.  p.  15. 


CH.  XI.]  THE  FUNDAMENTAL  ANTITHESIS  OF  PHILOSOPHY.    227 


it 


US :  they  are ;  we  see  them,  touch  them,  and  thus  know  that 
"  they  exist :  but  we  do  not  make  them  by  seeing  or  touching 
"  them,  as  we  make  our  thoughts  by  thinking  them :  we  are 
"passive,  and  Things  act  upon  our  organs  of  perception*". 

Here  we  have,  as  before,  'without  us'  as  quasi-synony^ 
mous  with  'different  from  us'  and  *  independent  of  us'.  But 
what  seems  to  me  the  case  with  Dr  Whewell  is,  that  the  wrong 
psychology  which  we  find,  carries  in  a  way  its  antidote  with 
it :  I  will  show  how.  *  We  see  the  things,  touch  them,  and  thus 
know  that  they  exist '.  This  sentence  /  should  put :  we  see, 
touch  (so  we  describe  certain  sensations),  and  in  so  doing  know 
that  things  exist,  which  last  clause  means,  we  become  aware 
of  something  to  which  we  attribute  an  existence  like  our  own. 
In  the  wrong  psychology  the  sentence  would  mean :  three 
steps,  instead  of  my  one:  first,  the  things  are  by  us  to  be 
seen :  next,  we  see  and  touch  them :  third,  we  infer  from  the 
seeing  and  touching  that  they  exist.  The  first  step  here  is  not 
strongly  marked  in  Dr  Whewell :  the  transition  from  the  second 
to  the  third  seems  more  strongly  so :  though  still  his  '  thus* 
('  wef  thus  know  that  they  exist ')  need  not  imply  an  inference*. 
The  next  clause  of  the  passage  quoted,  it  appears  to  me,  should 
be  put  with  other  passages  of  Dr  Whewell,  in  which  he  seems  to 
me  to  say  that  we  do  make  things  the  things  that  they  are  to 
us  by  thinking  them,  that  is,  by  superinducing  'ideas'  upon 
what  he  calls  the  sensations  (the  seeing  and  touching) :  when 
some  '  things ',  viz.  the  rays  of  light,  act  upon  our  organs  of 
perception,  then,  by  thinking  (as  we  make  our  thoughts),  by 
superinducing  ideas  (of  space,  &c.),  we  make  other  'things',  viz. 
a  tree  or  the  sun,  and  these  are  the  things  which  common 
language  describes  us  as  '  seeing*. 

The  antithesis  between  'thoughts*  and  'things',  and  the 
antithesis  between  '  theories'  and  '  facts',  are  in  the  main  similar, 
and  are  described  in  very  much  the  same  language.  And  I 
speak  of  them  in  particular,  because  it  seems  to  me  that  the 

*  Ih.  p.  34. 

«  Of  course  if  it  does,  the  inference  must  be  from  a  maxim,  '  what  we  axe  to  see 
and  touch  exists':  implying,  previous  to  the  commencement  of  knowledge,  a  notion 
of  existence  independent  of  our  own,  and  a  sort  of  prescience  of  our  seeing  and 
toudiing. 

15—2 


11' 


^ 


I '' 


I 


:) 


228 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL  ANTITHESIS 


[cHAPi 


'  antithesis ',  so  to  call  it,  has  really,  as  Dr  Whewell  himself 
puts  it  sometimes,  much  more  the  chara<;ter  of  a  contrast  (or 
counter-respondence)  of  view  than  of  a  separation  of  elements. 
*  That  which  is  a  Fact  under  one  aspect,  is  a  Theory  under 
another*'.  So  says  Dr  Whewell  in  one  place,  and  so  say  I, 
and  the  same  of  *  thought'  and  *  thing',  'idea'  and  *  sensa- 
tion', i Theories',  again  he  says,  'become  facts  by  becoming 
certain  and  familiar'.  That  is,  they  become  facts  as  we  con- 
ceive facts :  and  just  in  the  same  manner  if  we  look  in  the 
reverse  direction,  'facts'  become  in  our  mind  true  theories  or 
conceptions. 

Speaking  of  theory,  I  will  just  comment  for  a  moment  on 
a  passage  of  Dr  Whewell's,  in  which  he  gives  a  most  interest- 
ing and  fruitful  illustration,  and  falls  it  seems  to  me  into  a 
mistake  as  illustrative  and  important. 

"  The  scene  of  nature  is  a  picture  without  depth  of  sub- 
"  stance,  no  less  than  the  scene  of  art ;  and  in  the  one  case  as 
in  the  other,  it  is  the  mind  which,  by  an  act  of  its  own,  dis- 
covers that  colour  and  shape  denote  distance  and  solidity. 
Most  men  are  unconscious  of  this  perpetual  habit  of  reading 
the  language  of  the  external  world,  and  translating  as  they 
read.  The  draughtsman,  indeed,  is  compelled,  for  his  purposes, 
"  to  return  back  in  thought  from  the  solid  bodies  which  he  has 
"  inferred,  to  the  shapes  of  surface  which  he  really  sees.  He 
"  knows  that  there  is  a  mask  of  theory  over  the  whole  face  of 
"  nature,  if  it  be  theory  to  infer  more  than  we  see.  But  other 
•*  men,  unaware  of  this  masquerade,  hold  it  to  be  a  fact  that 
"  they  see  cubes  and  spheres,  spacious  apartments  and  winding 
"  avenues.  And  these  things  are  facts  to  them,  because  they 
are  unconscious  of  the  mental  operation  by  which  they  have 
penetrated  nature's  disguise*". 
If  any  one  will  ponder  this  passage  well,  he  will  see,  I 
think,  how  the  two  things  which  I  condemn,  the  relativism 
and  the  wrong  psychology,  go  together,  and  how  they  render 
clear  thought  impossible. 

What  is  it  that  we  want  to  see,  or,  if  we  prefer  the  expres- 
sion, which  ought  we  to  see  ? 

It  appears  to  me  that  Dr  Whewell,  in  the  above  passage. 


€i 


tt 


<{ 


(( 


it 


if 


if 


XI.] 


OF   PHILOSOPHY. 


229 


*  ffia.  of  Scientific  IdecUf  p.  44. 


*  Ih.  p.  46. 


describes  exactly  the  same  proceeding  on  our  part,  in  the  earlier 
part  of  the  passage  as  'the  seeing,  not  the  face  of  nature, 
but  a  mask  of  theory  over  it ',  and  in  the  end  of  the  passage 
as  'the  penetrating  nature's  disguise'.  That  is,  in  the  same 
passage,  the  view  of  knowledge  taken  is  changed  to  one  exactly 
the  reverse.  The  draughtsman  does  not  see  the  cubes  and 
spheres,  but  the  surfaces,  and  it  is  this  sight  which  is  it  ap- 
pears the  real  face  of  nature :  we  do  see  the  cubes  and  spheres, 
and  this  way  of  our  seeing  is  described  first  as  seeing  nature 
in  masquerade,  and  then  as  wnmasquerading  her.  Which  is  it  ? 
I  may  be  wrong  in  my  understanding  of  the  sentence,  and 
so  far  as  I  am  right,  I  say  most  unfeignedly  that  my  view  of  the 
confusion  is  as  of  something  which  it  is  almost  impossible  to 
avoid,  so  long  as  the  language  about  sensation  and  nature  is 
used,  which  is  almost  the  received  language,  and  no  peculiar 
language  of  Dr  WhewelL  I  mean  such  language  as  '  the  shapes 
of  surface  which  the  draughtsman  really  sees\  and  the  language 
about  '  inference ',  to  which  however  I  will  return  if  I  can  again. 
And  then,  supposing  the  existence  of  this  mask  of  theory  (a 
most  happy  expression  it  seems  to  me,  well  understood),  what 
does  the  mask  cover  ?  The  face  of  nature  ?  Nature,  or  fact,  is 
to  me,  and  I  should  have  thought  to  Dr  Whewell,  the  mask  it- 
self if  we  are  to  call  'mask'  what  theory  presents  to  us;  and 
what  is  beneath  the  mask  is  not  'the  faxje  of  nature',  but  the 
'unknowable  substratum'  of  the  notionaUsts,  the  'nonsense  or 
contradictory '  of  Mr  Ferrier.  The  notion  of  the  mask  over  the 
fa^e  of  nature  is  exax)tly  that  which  I  am  sure  Dr  Whewell  does 
not  wish  to  fall  into-it  is  what  I  have  called  'relativism'.  If 
'  the  face  of  nature'  is  reality,  then  the  mask  over  it,  which  is 
what  theory  gives  us,  is  so  much  deception,  and  that  is  what 
relativism  really  comes  to.  Except  that  even  the  mask  is  less 
deceptive  than  the  relativist's  knowledge,  for  the  mask  does 
give  us  some  features  of  what  is  within.  If  on  the  other  hand, 
what  theory  gives  us  is  reality  or  fact,  then,  as  I  said,  the  mask 
is  the  face.  And  in  either  case,  we  have  nothing  to  do  with 
'penetrating  nature's  disguise';  and  this  view  of  knowledge 
anyhow  out  of  v^ace  here,  is  not  worth  much  anywhere  If 
nature  does  disguise  herself,  as  the  relativists  believe,  she  is 
likely,  as  they  also  believe,  to  do  so  effectually. 


II 


230 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL   ANTITHESIS 


[chap. 


fi 


it 


Mj  view  then  is  precisely  expressed  by  the  antithesis  as  it 
exists  between  Theories  and  Facts.  "As  our  knowledge",  says 
Dr  Whewell,  '*  becomes  more  sure  and  more  extensive,  we  are 
constantly  transferring  to  the  class  of  facts,  opinions  which  were 
at  first  regarded  as  theories^".  Fact  is  nature  or  the  uni- 
verse :  and  fact  here,  with  Dr  Whewell,  is  described  as  justified 
or  verified  opinion,  just  as  I  have  described  it  as  rightness  of 
thought:  the  growth  of  our  knowledge  is- the  increase  of  fact 
for  us  by  the  conversion  of  opinion  into  it :  I*  have  described 
fact,  or  phenomenalism,  as  a  deposit  from  imagination  in  this 
same  way. 

In  my  view,  the  antithesis  between  thoughts  and  things 
is  just  the  same  as  this  between  theories  and  facts.  How  far 
they  are  the  same  with  Dr  Whewell,  we  have  seen. 

I  will  quote  rather  at  length  Dr  WhewelFs  language  on  the 
antithesis  as  it  exists  between  'ideas'  and  'sensations'. 

"  Space,  time,  number,  are  not  Sensations  or  Things.  They 
"  are  something  different  from,  and  opposed  to  Sensations  and 
**  Things.  We  have  termed  them  Ideas.  It  may  be  said  they 
"  are  Relations  of  Things,  or  of  Sensations.  But  granting  this 
form  of  expression,  still  a  Relation  is  not  a  Thing  or  a  Sensa- 
tion; and  therefore  we  must  still  have  another  and  opposite 
element,  along  with  our  Sensations.  And  yet,  though  we  have 
"  thus  these  two  elements  in  every  act  of  perception,  we  cannot 
designate  any  portion  of  the  act  as  absolutely  and  exclusively 
belonging  to  one  of  the  elements.  Perception  involves  Sen- 
sation, along  with  Ideas  of  time,  space,  and  the  like  ;  or,  •  if  any 
one  prefers  the  expression,  we  may  say,  Perception  involves 
"  Sensations  along  with  the  apprehension  of  Relations.  Percep- 
"  tion  is  Sensation,  along  with  such  ideas  as  make  Sensation 
"  into  an  apprehension  of  Things  or  Objects. 

"And  as  Perception  of  Objects  implies  Ideas, — as  Obser- 
"  vation  implies  Eeasoning; — so,  on  the  other  hand,  Ideas  cannot 
"  exist  where  sensation  has  not  been'". 

If  we  begin,  as  in  the  case  of  the  antithesis  between  things 
and  thoughts,  with  the  latter  part  of  this  language,  I  hold 
with  it,  giving  my  own  meaning  to  'sensation'  and  'percep- 
tion', and  my  own  meaning  to  the  calling  the  object  of  the 

^  Ih.  p.  49.  •  lb.  p.  46. 


€t 


<f 


it 


€t 


tt 


ft 


ft 


XI.] 


OF  philosophy. 


231 


one  and  that  of  the  other,  '  two  elements ' :  but  this  meaning 
is  such  as  does  not  lead  me  to  say  that  space  is  not  '  a  thing ', 
or  that  it  is  not,  in  another  and  more  proper  signification  of  the 
term  'sensation',  a  'sensation':  nor  can  I  understand  the  lan- 
guage,  that   space  and    time   are  'opposed'  to   sensations   or 
things,  and  constitute  an  element  'opposite'  to  the  other.     I 
will  not  say  again  what  I  have  said  as  to  '  the  scale  of  sensation 
or  knowledge':  I  am  equally  ready  (if  only  we  take  care  which 
we  do)  to  use  the  term  '  sensation '  of  all  our  knowledge,  or  of 
knowledge  such  as  our  knowledge  of  secondary  qualities :  and 
similarly  '  perception '  of  all  our  just  thought  suggesting  the 
presence  of  phenomena,  or  of  such  thought  as  applied  to  the 
primary  qualities,  united  with  sensation  in  the  second  significa- 
tion above  :  and  if  any  one  likes  to  call  knowledge  such  as  that 
of  the  secondary,  and  such  again  as  that  of  the  primary  qualities 
(knowledge  ie,  at  different  heights  on  my  scale),  different  ele- 
ments, I  do  not  quarrel  with  him.     Only  that  in  this  view  we 
have  really  not  two,  but  many,  elements  of  knowledge  :  and  to 
me,  Dr  Whewell's  '  Ideas '  rise  some  of  them  as  much  above 
others  as  any  of  them  rise  above  his  '  sensations '.     This  we 

shall  see  better  shortly. 

What  I  quarrel  with  is  the  supposition  of  the  two  element*, 
with  the  reason  for  it,  viz.  that  the  one  is  derived  from  the 
mind,  the  other  from  things.  I  have  described  the  extent  to 
which,  in  my  view,  this  may  be  said  justly  :  but  as  it  is  given 
by  Dr  Whewell,  it  seems  to  me  to  involve  all  the  wrong  psy- 
chology which  it  is  my  chief  business  to  oppose.  '  Sensations'  are 
defined  '  the  impressions  upon  our  senses ':  then  these  sensa- 
tions are  connected  by  us  in  perception  according  to  relations  of 
space,  time,  number :  these  connexions  of  the  sensations  contem- 
plated distinct  from  the  things  to  which  they  are  appUed,  con- 
stitute 'ideas'.  The  sensations  are  apprehended  by  the  senses, 
then  relations  of  them  by  an  act  of  the  mind :  the  senses  furnish 
something,  but  these  relations  go  beyond  what  they  furnish : 
the  mind  is  passive,  as  weU  as  active;  there  are  objects  without 
as  weU  as  faculties  within.  The  mind  is  always  actively  applymg 
ideas  to  the  objects  which  it  perceives,  but  at  the  same  time  is 
passively  perceiving  them  by  means  of  sensations  This  is  Dr 
Whewell's  account. 


232 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL  AT^TITHESIS  [CHAP. 


I  do  not  want  here  the  least  to  be  cavilling  about  language, 
and  for  that  reason  give  a  variety  of  sentences  of  Dr  Whewell's, 
who  is  here  giving  nothing  which  is  peculiarly  his  own,  but  only 
describing  vividly  and  interestingly  what  a  great  many  would 
agree  with  him  in.  What  I  want  the  reader  to  judge  for  him- 
self about,  not  by  any  one  sentence,  but  by  conceiving,  as  well 
as  he  can,  the  whole  view,  is  this :  Are  there  here  two  processes, 
or  as  I  say,  one  ?  Is  the  mind's  passivity,  in  so  far  as  it  is  recep- 
tivity, or  in  other  words,  as  there  is  knowledge,  anjrthing  other 
than  its  activity  looked  at  the  other  way  ?  Are  objects  objects 
to  us  any  otherwise  than  as  our  faculties  are  exercised  upon 
them  ?  What  is  the  meaning  of  *  applying  ideas  to  the  objects*? 
Are  the  objects  objects  to  us  independently  of  this  application  ? 
then  we  know  without  ideas  :  and  what  do  the  ideas  add  ?  Or, 
on  the  other  hand,  are  they  not?  then  the  application  of  the 
ideas  is  the  knowing:  and  till  they  are  applied  there  is  no 
knowledge  of  any  kind.  All  I  am  concerned  with  is,  that  there 
are  not  two  processes,  but  one  described  different  ways.  And 
when  Dr  Whewell  speaks  of  anything  *  being  apprehended  by 
the  senses ',  is  he  not  doing  the  very  thing  which  he  condemned 
in  the  passage  which  I  quoted  before,  and  '  designating  a  por- 
tion of  the  act  of  perception  as  exclusively  belonging  to  one  of 
its  elements  *,  viz.  (his)  sensation  ? 

I  will  not  dwell  upon  this  because  what  is  wanted  is  thought, 
and  not  perhaps  very  easy  thought  on  the  part  of  the  reader,  and 
I  speak  of  it  in  reference  to  Dr  Whewell,  because  it  seems 
to  me,  as  I  have  said,  that  all  that  he  says  here  is  eminently 
instructive  as  to  our  view  of  knowledge,  and  that  the  wrong 
psychology  is  not  essential,  and  has  got,  as  I  expressed  it,  its 
antidote  with  it. 

It  is  chiefly  by  the  aid  of  the  sense  of  sight  that  this  dis- 
tinction between  what  comes  from  the  mind  and  what  from  the 
thing  is  made  out.  I  will  not  speak  of  this  now,  because  I 
should  like  to  speak  a  little  of  this  sense  shortly  by  itself 

Let  the  reader  only  weigh  such  a  sentence  as  this  (it  is 
'seeing'  that  is  being  spoken  of):  "Who  does  not  know  how 
"  much  we,  by  an  act  of  the  mind,  add  to  that  which  our  senses 
"  receive?*"  What  *our  senses 'means  here,  I  cannot  understand. 

*  Ih.  p.  45.  . 


XI.] 


OF   PHILOSOPHY. 


233 


Is  it  the  optic  nerve  ?  Then  the  act  of  the  mind  adds  every- 
thing,  and  we  do  not  apprehend  by  the  sense  anything.  Is 
it  ourselves  as  sensitive,  so  that  '  what  our  senses  receive  *  is  the 
change  of  consciousness  which  we  describe  as  'seeing*?  Then 
what  needs  any  act  of  the  mind  besides  this  ?  Is  it  not  itself 
an  act  of  the  mind,  if  so  we  choose  to  describe  it  ? 

I  have  perhaps  said  enough  to  make  it  understood  in  what 
manner  I  consider  the  antithesis  right,  and  in  what  wrong.  It  is 
right  in  three  ways  :  (1)  as  presenting  the  double  view,  in  the 
way  which  I  mentioned  in  speaking  about  theory  and  fact : 
(2)  as  applied  through  Dr  Whewell's  book,  in  bringing  out  pro- 
perly the  manner  in  which  the  mind,  in  the  process  of  learning 
or  increasing  knowledge,  is  active ;  and  (3)  in  marking  the  dif- 
ferent kinds  of  things  which  are  the  objects  of  our  knowledge, 
though  Dr  Whewell*s  view  of  these  kinds  is  different  in  some 
degree  from  mine. 

The  antithesis  is  wrong  in  one  way:  that  it  divides  a  part  of 
knowledge,  as  belonging  to  the  mind,  from  a  part  as  not  belong- 
ing to  it :  whereas  all  knowledge  is  right  thought,  if  we  look  at 
it  so,  as  on  the  other  hand  all  knowledge  is  fact  exhibiting  itself 
to  us  or  at  which  we  are  present,  if  we  look  at  it  so. 

The  second  way  in  which,  as  I  noticed  above,  the  antithesis  is 
important,  gives  it  probably  its  main  value. 

"An  inductive  truth*',  says  Dr  Whewell,  "is  proved  like  the 
"guess  which  answers  a  riddle,  by  its  agreeing  with  the  facts 
"described***.  This  account  is  incomplete,  and  is  commented 
upon  as  such  very  severely  by  Mr  Mill,  because  it  is  possible 
that  various  theories  might  agree  with  the  fa^ts  described,  and 
we  want  one  answer,  not  several,  to  the  riddle  of  the  imiverse  : 
but  the  describing  the  problem  as  the  guessing  a  riddle  puts  it 
more  aptly  than  any  description  of  it  as  '  fact  impressing  itself 
upon  us*,  because  the  real  activity  is  on  our  side,  and  in  all 
history  of  the  process  this  is  the  important  thing  to  bring 
fully  out.  Dr  Whewell's  view  is  I  think  more  likely  than  many 
others  to  save  us  from  that  cardinal  confusion  in  the  study  of 
the  process  of  knowledge,  the  considering  the  things  as  known 
before  we  know  them. 

*  76.  p.  49. 


tttrnttt^ 


i^ 


234 


THE  FUNDAMENTAL  ANTITHESIS 


[chap. 


The  mass  of  observed  fact  at  any  time,  say  upon  any  par- 
ticular subject  as  to  which  knowledge  is  progressing,  presents  a 
double  aspect:    in  reference  to  its  past,   and  to  the  thought 
which  has  been  expended  upon  it,  it  is  knowledge  and  is  orderly : 
but  on  the  side  opposite  to  this  it  is  not  knowledge  but  only  the 
inform  matter  of  possible  future  knowledge,  and  itself  chaos  or 
confusion.   The  idea  or  right  conception  is  then  appUed  to  it :  it 
becomes  knowledge  and  order.     The  important  thing  to  observe 
here  is,  that  it  is  not  to  this  as  to  fact  that  the  idea  is  applied, 
thereby  generating  knowledge,  but  to  this  as  fa^t  as  yet  unac- 
counted for,  and  felt  as  unaccounted  for :  it  is  this,  the  unac- 
counted for,  which  is  the  matter  of  knowledge,  and  wants  the  idea 
or  conception  to  make  it  knowledge :  as  fact,  it  is  knowledge 
already,  and  is  orderly,  having  been  generated  as  Dr  Whewell 
has  himself  described,  from  theory:  this,  the  unaccounted  for, 
is  Mr  Ferrier's  non- sense,  the  not-yet  sense.     Now  it  is  only  in 
this  way,  it  seems  to  me,  that  we  can  form  a  notion  of  this  in- 
form matter  of  knowledge,  and  therefore  of  what  it  is  which  the 
application  of  the  idea  eflfects.     To  form  a  notion  of  it,  we  must 
of  course  to  some  degree  know  it,  i.e.  it  must  in  some  way  be 
no  longer  only  matter  of  knowledge,  but  knowledge :  but  we  may 
consider  it  in  another  way  not  yet  knowledge,  and  this  is  just 
the  state  of  Dr  Whewell's  'fact  with  the  idea  as  yet  unapplied*. 
It  is  not  therefore  that  the  idea  is  of  any  different  nature  from  the 
fact  to  which  it  is  applied  :  it  is  not  that  the  fact  is  something 
generically  given  to  the  mind,  and  the  idea  something  generi- 
cally  proceeding  from  the  mind :  the  fact,  as  known  fact,  does 
not  want  the  idea,  nor  is  capable  of  it :  it  is  the  fact  in  that 
aspect  of  it  in  which  it  is  analogous  to  what  I  described  the 
logical  subject  to  be — in  its  aspect  of  the  unaccounted  for  and 
undescribed,  conceptible  but  unconceived,  in  which  aspect  it  has 
no  character  but  that  of  capability  of  the  appropriate  concep- 
tion— in  which  it  is  waiting  for  its  idea  as  the  subject  waits  for 
its  predicate — it  is  the  fact  in  this  aspect  of  it  that  wants  the 
idea:  and  it  is  in  this  view  that  Dr  Whewell's  account  of  the 
growth  of  knowledge  is  true  and  valuable.     We  have  epistemo- 
logy,  or  the  manner  in  which  we  make  knowledge  out  of  its 
prae-objectal  matter  or  confusion,  exemplified  before  us  in  an 
actual  course  or  progress  :  and  that  without  even  so  much  of 


XI.] 


OF   PHILOSOPHY. 


233 


technicalism  as  I  use  here,  with  no  cumbrous  logical  phraseology 
bringing  us  into  danger  of  notionalism  or  mis-realization,  but 
with,  when  fact  is  what  we  are  concerned  with,  what  I  call  a 
genuine  and  good  phenomenalism,  that  is,  a  view  of  nature  as 
our  sensive  powers  actually  communicate  with  it 

Such  being  the  manner  in  which  I  look  at  Dr  Whewell's 
proceeding,  of  course  I  set  no  particular  value  on  his  language, 
as  distinguished  from  other  possible  language  in  conjunction 
with  which  the  same  proceeding  might  go  on.  This  successive 
application  of  ideas  to  the  matter  of  knowledge  is  a  course  of 
thought  on  our  part  about  the  universe,  the  great  and  primaeval 
subject  of  knowledge,  the  vast  unaccounted  for  and  conceptible, 
but  only  one  way,  in  substance,  conceptible — capable  only  of 
the  right  account  of  it  and  the  appropriate  conception.  Dr 
Whewell's  ideas  are  a  set  of  real  categories  or  great  predicates, 
of  which  the  universe,  as  such  a  subject,  is  susceptible.  And 
all  this,  as  I  view  it,  does  not  prevent  our  turning  the  thing  the 
other  way,  and  looking  at  these  ideas  as  the  great  facts  of  the 
universe,  if  we  like  to  begin  with  supposing  the  universe  what 
we  finally  come  to  find  out  that  it  is :  then,  however,  we  are 
merely  adstant,  present  at  it,  we  must  not  make  the  incongruous 
supposition  of  ourselves  thinking  and  learning  about  it.  But 
since  we  do  think  and  learn  about  it,  and  knowledge  grows,  and 
the  Rationale  of  its  growth  is  Real  Logic,  the  best  method  for 
Real  Logic  is  that  of  Dr  Whewell,  where  the  activity  of  our 
minds  is  fully  taken  account  of,  or  that  is  the  point  of  view. 

Dr  Whewell's  ideas  are  in  my  view  simply  knowledge  viewed 
as  preceding  from  the  activity  of  the  mind,  in  the  same  way  as 
his  facts  are  simply  knowledge  viewed  as  coming  to  the  mind, 
or  apparent  to  it.  It  seems  to  me  that  there  is  throughout 
an  inconsistency  in  his  language,  arising  from  his  mixing  the 
notion  (to  me  right)  of  the  mind  forming  its  conceptions  and 
applpng  them  to  the  facts  (in  the  manner  just  described),  with 
the  notion  (to  me  the  wrong  one)  of  the  mind  having  ideas  (the 
relation  of  which  to  the  above  '  conceptions '  is  confused)  as  its 
furniture,  in  the  same  way  as  the  universe  has  things  for  its 
furniture.  I  accept,  as  against  Mr  Mill,  M.  Comte,  and  perhaps 
others,  Dr  Whewell's  view  in  general  of  the  manner  of  the 
growth  of  knowledge.     But  I  think  that  the  notion  of  the  ideas 


236 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL  ANTITHESIS 


[chap. 


yi.] 


OP   PHILOSOPHY. 


237 


\i 


being  the  furniture  of  the  mind,  so  far  from  being  necessary  to 
what  is  good  in  the  view,  is  incongruous  with  it.  The  whole 
purpose  of  distinguishing  anything  as  belonging  to  the  mind 
from  something  else  as  belonging  to  the  universe,  is  in  order 
that  we  may  be  able  to  contemplate  reflectively  the  former  in- 
dependent of  that  continuing  change  of  view  which  progressive 
experience  or  growth  of  knowledge  causes  in  us.  But  Dr 
Whewell's  ideas  have  got  nothing  fixed  or  stable  about  them: 
even  the  value  of  space  and  time,  as  necessary  and  original 
ideas,  is  destroyed  by  the  association  with  them  of  ideas  in 
regard  of  which  we  are  in  no  degree  certain  that  we  are  really 
in  right  possession  of  them  :  the  ideas  cannot  warrant  any  truth 
to  us  when  so  many  of  them  want  warranting  themselves. 

For  the  notion  of  the  generic  distinction  of  the  idea  from 
the  fact,  there  needs  to  be  substituted  the  notion  which  I  gave 
above,  that  it  is  not  the  fact,  qud  fact,  which  wants  the  idea  as 
something  to   complete   it,  but  the   fact  as  imaccounted  for. 
"  We  see  two  trees  of  different  kinds :  but  we  cannot  know  that 
"  they  are  so,  except  by  applying  to  them  our  idea  of  the  resem- 
"  blance  and  difference  which  makes  kinds*".     The  superinduc- 
tion  of  the  idea  upon  the  fact  as  fact  is  just  that  same  relativism 
and  wrong  psychology  united  which  makes  us  suppose  the  ex- 
isting universe  first,  and  then  speculate  how  we  know  it.    We 
then  inevitably  get  the  notion  that  our  knowledge  of  it  alters 
its  existence  to  us,  or  is  not  of  its  true  existence,  which  is  what  I 
call  '  relativism  *.     And  between  the  senses  feeling  and  the  mind 
perceiving  we  make  the  notion  of  knowledge  utterly  disjointed 
and  confused.     This  is  the  wrong  psychology.     In  the  sentence 
above,  I  cannot  possibly  understand  the  meaning  of  'seeing  two 
trees  of  different  kinds',  and  yet  having  still  to  know  that  they 
are  of  different  kinds,  by  applying  to  them  the  idea  of  kind. 
When  we  first  see  the  trees,  how  do  they  seem  to  us  ?  of  the 
same  kind  ?  then  what  leads  us  to  apply  to  them  the  idea  which 
makes  us  change  our  mind  about  them  and  think  them  of  dif- 
ferent kinds?     Or,  on  the  other  hand,  do  we  see  them  of  dif- 
ferent kinds  ?  then  we  do  know  their  difference  already  before 
the  idea  is  applied.    Or,  again,  do  we  see  them  of  no  kind  ?  but 
then  we  do  not  see  them  as  trees :  they  cannot  be  trees  to  us 

*  *  /6.  p.  3«.  • 


without  the  thought  on  our  part  of  kind.  What  I  want  to  urge 
is  this :  that  the  idea  is  not  applied  to  the  fact  as  fact,  for,  as 
such,  it  is  complete  already,  but  to  the  faot  as  idea  (if  so  for  a 
moment  we  may  speak,  following  the  analogy  of  some  language 
which  I  have  formerly  used),  or  in  other  words,  to  the  jagged  edge 
of  the  fact,  to  the  fact  where  it  is  incomplete,  suggestive,  causing 
wonder,  stirring  imagination,  leaving  something  to  be  accounted 
for.  We  see  two  trees  of  different  kinds :  what  we  want  to 
know  is  not  that  they  are  of  different  kinds,  for  that  is  what  we 
see,  and  it  is  very  likely  this  difference  which  makes  us  notice 
them :  there  wants  no  fresh  idea  applying  for  that ;  but  no  doubt 
there  is  something  we  want  to  know,  and  a  great  deal,  viz.  what 
I  should  call  the  meaning  of  their  being  of  different  kinds,  the 
reason  of  what  we  see :  are  they  both  the  same  thing,  what 
ought  to  be  called  by  the  same  name,  or  are  they  not  ?  What  is 
the  meaning  of  their  being  so  like  each  other,  and  yet  so  curiously 
different  ?  The  answer  to  these  questions-  is  the  development 
of  the  idea  of  kind :  whether  this  idea  comes  from  the  mind 
or  whether  it  is  in  the  thing  I  do  not  care  to  enquire  for  various 
reasons,  which  I  have  given.  What  is  of  consequence  is,  that 
there  is  no  seeing  till  there  is  the  idea:  and  after  there  is 
seeing,  the  idea  is  not  wanted  for  that  seeing,  though  it  is 
wanted  perhaps  abundantly  for  what  that  seeing  suggests. 

What  I  agiee  with  Dr  Whewell  in  is  the  following :  "  Thus 
"  the  Idea  is  disclosed  but  not  fully  revealed,  imparted  but  not 
"  transfrised,  by  the  use  we  make  of  it  in  science.  When  we 
"  have  taken  from  the  fountain  so  much  as  serves  our  purpose, 
"  there  still  remains  behind  a  deep  well  of  truth,  which  we  have 
"not  exhausted,  and  which  we  may  easily  believe  to  be  in- 
"  exhaustible*".  And  such  an  account  of  space  as  that  which  he 
gives,  where  he  describes  *  the  perception  of  it  as  by  a  sixth 
*  sense*'  and  uses  language  in  which  I  have  entirely  followed 
him  and  others:  *we  perceive  space  by  motion':  and  much 
besides  of  most  interesting  description,  leaving  me  quite  at  a 
loss  why  space  is  described,  as  we  saw  in  another  place,  as 
something  opposite  to  sensations. 

What  I  dissent  from  him  in  is  expressed  by  such  a  passage 


*  /6.  p.  75. 


>  Ib,^,  114. 


238 


THE   FUNDAMENTAL   ANTITHESIS 


L'    , 


[chap. 


as  the  following,  surely  very  dififerent  from  the  description 
above  :  "  Whether  we  call  the  conception  of  space  a  Condition 
**  of  perception,  a  Form  of  perception,  or  an  Idea,  or  by  any 
"  other  term,  it  is  something  originally  inherent  in  the  mind 
"  perceiving,  and  not  in  the  objects  perceived*". 

The  putting  together  the  following  two  passages'  from  the 
same  page  may  perhaps  exactly  express  my  difference  with 
him.  The  first :  "  Ideas  regulate  the  active  operations  of  our 
**  minds,  without  which  our  passive  sensations  do  not  become 
"knowledge".  The  second:  "Knowledge  involves  an  active  as 
"  well  as  a  passive  element;  knowledge  is  not  possible  without 
"  an  act  of  the  mind,  regulated  by  certain  laws". 

Instead  of  this  last  passage,  what  I  should  say  would  be : 
Knowledge  is  all  active  if  we  like  to  call  it  so,  or  all  passive 
if  we  prefer  that  waj  of  expressing  ourselves :  if  we  only  knew^ 
and  did  not  learrij  it  would  not  matter  which  way  we  spoke  :  as 
it  is  the  former  is  the  better,  because  in  learning  we  mvst 
describe  the  mind  as  active,  and  the  description  of  knowledge 
as  passive  only  applies  to  the  mind  after  the  knowledge  has 
been  gained. 

Is  Dr  Whewell's  latter  passage  here  consistent  with  the 
former  ? 

If  by  'sensations'  in  the  former  passage  is  meant  what  I 
have  called  'bodily  communication',  then  the  former  passage 
exactly  expresses  my  view.  But  then  the  sensations,  though 
they  may  be  necessary  for  some  knowledge,  are  no  part  or 
element  of  knowledge  themselves.  The  knowledge  is  all  super- 
induced upon  them. 

If  by  '  sensations*  is  meant  consciousness  in  conjunction  with 
the  nervous  aflfection,  then  it  is  wrong  to  say  that  without 
the  idea  superinduced  there  is  not  knowledge.  This  conscious- 
ness in  the  sensation  is  itself  knowledge — in  fact  the  idea 
is  superinduced  —  in  the  sensation  as  felt  is  implied  notice^ 
i.e.  mental  activity — if  sensation  is  more  than  unfelt  bodily 
communication  there  is  thought  in  it,  and  this  thought  is 
Dr  Whewell's  '  idea '.  There  are  not  two  elements  of  know- 
ledge. 


XL] 


OF   PHILOSOPHY. 


239 


it 


tt 


Dr  Whewell's  argument  that  the  idea  of  space  is  not  from 
experience,  but  is  inherent  in  the  mind,  is  of  the  following 
character. 

"I  assert,  then,  that  space  is  not  a  notion  obtained  by 
"  experience.  Experience  gives  us  information  concerning  things 
"  without  us :  but  our  apprehending  them  as  without  us,  takes 
"  for  granted  their  existence  in  space.  Experience  acquaints  us 
"what  are  the  form,  position,  magnitude  of  particular  objects: 
but  that  they  have  form,  position,  magnitude,  presupposes  that 
they  are  in  space.  -We  cannot  derive  from  appearances,  by 
"  the  way  of  observation,  the  habit  of  representing  things  to 
"ourselves  as  in  space;  for  no  single  act  of  observation  is 
"possible  any  otherwise  than  by  beginning  with  such  a  re- 
"  presentation,   and  conceiving  objects   as  already  existing  in 

"space"'. 

What  the  first  three  sentences  of  this  passage  go  to  prove 
is,  that  the  existence  of  objects  in  space  isa  presupposition  to 
any  particular  experience,  on  our  part,  of  them.  Does  this 
prove  in  any  way  that  space  may  not  be  considered  the  fii-st, 
and  a  general,  experience  ?  We  cannot  apprehend  objects  with- 
out apprehending  space.  How  does  this  show  that  the  space  is 
more  in  the  mind  than  the  objects  are  ?  Dr  Whewell's  sen- 
tence— 'our  apprehending  things  as  without  us,  takes  for 
granted  their  existence  in  space' — seems  to  me,  naturally 
taken,  to  express  my  view  rather  than  his.  I  say,  our  appre- 
hending objects,  and  that  in  space,  and  the  objects,  to  our 
belief,  existing,  and  that  in  space,  are  two  ways  of  expressing 
the  same  thing.  Both  objects  and  space  either  belong  to  the 
mind,  or  exist  independently  of  the  mind,  according  as  we 
use  our  language.  Space  and  objects  both  alike  (phenomenal- 
ism, as  I  call  the  union,  though  not  approving  the  term  'ob- 
jects') constitute  either  the  first  great  general  experience,  or 
represent  a  way  in  which  we  inevitably  think,  whichever  lan- 
guage we  like  to  use. 

Dr  Whewell's  expression  'the  habit  of  representing  things 
to  ourselves  as  in  space',  seems  to  me  to  suggest  happily  the 
truth  as  between  the  two  parties.    He  says.  You  experientialists 


*  lb.  p.  94. 


'  lb.  p.  6p. 


*  lb.  p.  239. 


240 


THE  FUNDAMENTAL   ANTITHESIS 


[chap. 


must  then  consider  that  the  representing  to  ourselves  things  in 
space  is  a  habit  which  we  learn  by  expeiience,  and  that  cannot 
be,  surely :  they  say,  No,  the  expression  *  habit  of  representing 
things  to  ourselves  in  space' belongs  to  you:  we  feel  the  space 
ajs  we  feel  them :  it  is  with  us  an  object,  a  part  of  objects, 
the  first  object :  it  is  with  you  that  spatial  representation  is  a 
mental  habit :  with  us  the  expression  has  no  significance :  space 
with  us  is  a  part  of  objects. 

I  have  dwelt  upon  all  this  as  I  have,  because  I  seem  quite 
certain  that  in  what  Dr  Whewell  says  about  ideas  there  is  a 
great  deal  that  is  true,  and  because  it  appears  to  me  that  this 
semi-Kantist  or  Kantoidic  doctrine  (of  Kantism  itself  I  say 
nothing)  with  its  almost  inevitable  results  of  notionalism  and 
relativism,  does  not  properly  belong  to  the  right  portion  of 
Dr  Whewell's  views,  however  much  it  may  seem  inwoven  with 
it  In  looking  at  the  '  Scientific  Ideas'  of  which  Dr  Whewell 
writes  the  history,  I  want  to  be  free  to  look  at  them  a&  I  please 
and  according  to  the  purpose  which  I  have  in  view,  either  as^ 
what  certainly  they  are,  so  far  as  we  can  be  certain  we  have 
fairly  got  hold  of  them,  the  great  constituents,  features,  realities 
of  the  universe,  or  as,  what  is  all  that  we  can  be  certain  they  are 
till  we  have  a  reasonable  confidence  that  we  hxive  fairly  got 
hold  of  them,  man's  ideas  about  the  universe,  the  results  of  the 
activity  of  his  mind  as  in  his  history  he  comes  into  contact 
with  one  portion  of  the  universe  after  another,  and  not  only 
examines  the  things  which  offer  themselves,  but  puts  them 
into  new  circumstances  for  better  examination.  To  me,  the 
ideas  are  equally  interesting  in  both  aspects.  To  know,  so  far 
as  we  can,  the  world  we  live  in,  is  one  most  glorious  aim.  To 
know  the  history  of  man*s  speculations  about  it,  right  and  wrong, 
is  to  me  scarcely  less  interesting. 

But  the  saying,  in  this  respect,  that  the  ideas  belong  to  the 
mind,  and  that  the  universe  is  something  to  which  the  ideas  do 
not  belong,  seems  to  me  to  be  a  tearing  in  half  what  ought  to 
go  all  together,  and  to  spoil  the  whole  view.  When  this  is 
done,  we  can  make  nothing  really  of  either  the  ideas  or  the 
imiverse.  There  is  a  necessary  confusion  about  the  ideas,, 
whether  they  are  something  which  the  mind  furnishes,  ready 
to  its  hand  from  the  beginning,  or  whether  they  are  something 


XI.] 


OF  philosopht. 


241 


which  we  learn  and  gradually  attain  to.  And  so  our  notion  of 
the  universe  must  be  that  confused  mis-psychological  one  which 
I  have  so  often  spoken  of — the  universe  is  before  us  and  we  can 
describe  it,  and  yet  somehow  or  other  we  have  yet  got  to  apply 
the  ideas  and  to  know  it. 

And  besides,  this  wrong  antithesis  between  the  ideas  on 
the  one  side,  and  on  the  other  the  universe,  not  as  confused 
matter  of  knowledge,  but  as  already  fact  and  objects  to  us,  pre- 
vents any  proper  examination  of  the  relation  of  the  ideas  to 
each  other,  and  of  their  relative  subordination  and  importance. 
Notions  most  heterogeneous,  as  'duty',  'cause',  'space',  have  to 
be  put  into  one  category  as  belonging  to  the  mind  as  against 
what  does  not  belong  to  it,  and  this  antithesis  is  looked  at  as 
so  important  that  we  are  in  danger  of  losing  the  proper  notion 
of  the  relations  among  the  things  thus  put  together. 

On  Dr  Whewell's  book  I  have  perhaps  said  enough.  Space  in 
my  view  is  something  higher,  more  mental,  than  oxygen  or  car- 
bon, time  than  space,  cause  and  kind  than  time,  and  in  this  way 
there  may  be  a  continued  succession,  and  a  continued  succession 
of  antitheses :  the  mind  may  go  on  supplying  higher  and  higher 
ideas ;  the  universe,  or  fact,  is  not  anything  which  receives  the 
idea,  but  is  that  which  the  idea  constitutes  before  us.  And 
this  is  the  same  process  as  that  which  may  be  described  as 
man's  finding  the  ideas  in  the  universe :  the  history  of  the  ideas 
is  alike  the  history  of  man's  mental  construction  of  the  universe 
which  his  mind  lives  in,  and  of  his  analysis,  ever  evolving  higher 
and  worthier  features,  of  the  universe  which  he  finds  himself 
hodily  in. 


16 


CHAPTEK  XII. 

THE  INTERPKETATION  OF  NATUKK 

On  the  famous  metaphor  of  knowledge  being  the  interpre- 
tation of  nature,  of  which  Dr  Whewell  speaks — and  warms  in 
the  speaking  of  it  to  the  consideration  of  it  as  something  more 
than  a  metaphor* — I  will  say  a  few  words  :  for  this  reason,  that 
I  think  the  metaphor  rightly  employed  is  a  most  instructive 
means  of  illustrating  the  wrong  psychology,  and  wrongly  used 
it  is  a  very  great  support  of  relativism. 

Let  us  suppose  that  I,  ignorant  of  Sanscrit,  purchase  a 
Sanscrit  book,  without  the  slightest  knowledge  of  its  title  or 
subject.  It  has  been  the  property  of  other  people  before  me, 
and  they,  or  some  of  them,  know  that  it  is  an  account  of  the 
campaign  of  Alexander  in  India :  but  this  knowledge  of  theirs 
is  nothing  to  me. 

The  reason  why  the  consideration  of  this  is  important  in 
respect  of  the  wrong  psychology,  is  the  following:  (1)  that  it 
gives  us  a  good  illustration  of  what  is  the  meaning  of  the 
matter,  or  inform  (unformed)  matter,  of  knowledge,  out  of  which 
we,  by  activity  of  the  mind  (superinducing /orm,  if  we  like  so  to 
speak),  make  knowledge  in  perception :  (which  matter  of  know- 
ledge Dr  Whewell  erroneously  supposes  to  be  things  known 
already  to  a  certain  extent  by  a  kind  of  inferior  knowledge  or 
sensation) :  and  (2)  that  it  is  likely  to  show  us  the  wrongness 
of  the  mis-psychological  supposition  of  the  independence,  first, 
of  the  things  perceived,  and  of  our  then,  as  such,  perceiving 
them. 

A  stone  lies  before  me  :  I  see  it.    This  is  very  well  to  de- 


*  HUt.  Scient  Ideas,  Vol.  I.  p.  42. 


CHAP.  XII.]        THE  INTERPRETATION   OF   NATURE. 


243 


scribe  what  we  each  of  us  do  now :  we  know  our  Sanscrit :  but 
if  this  manner  of  expression  be  used,  as  we  shall  find  it  con- 
tinually used,  in  speaking  of  the  manner  of  our  coming  to  see 
things,  or  in  giving  a  history  of  vision,  it  is  just  as  if  in  relation 
to  the  book  which  I  spoke  of  it  should  be  said  of  me.  He  has 
got  the  history  of  Alexander's  campaign  before  him :  he  reads 
it  He  has  really  got  before  him  a  bewildering  chaos  of  lines 
and  characters,  out  of  which,  as  he  learns,  he  makes  out,  or  in 
which,  if  we  prefer  the  expression,  he  gradually  comes  to  per- 
ceive, what  he  then  calls,  or  finds  out  to  be  what  others  call, 
a  history  of  the  campaign  of  Alexander.  This  is  the  manner 
in  which  we  perceive  or  know  anything,  whether  rudimentary 
or  advanced:  whether  the  supposed  stone  lying  before  us,  or 
the  mighty  fact  equally  lying  before  us,  of  the  earth's  revolution 
round  the  sun.  And  the  illustration  from  language  is  useful, 
because  it  is  only  by  means  of  an  illustration  that  the  truth  on 
the  subject  can  come  home  to  us.  We  cannot  unsee  the  pro- 
spect before  us.  Dr  Whewell  has  well  described,  in  a  passage 
which  I  lately  quoted,  how  the  draughtsman  (as  /  will  express 
it)  unsees  to  a  certain  extent,  i  e.  by  effort  divests  himself  of 
certain  habitual  ways  of  vision  or  inference  from  vision :  but 
we  have  got  to  unsee  and  unknow  much  further  back  than 
this,  if  we  are  in  any  way  to  attempt  imaginatively  to  recon- 
struct our  knowledge.  The  inform  matter  of  knowledge  of 
course  cannot  be  conceived  or  imagined  as  inform,  because  the 
conception  or  imagination  is  so  far  giving  it  form,  or  making  it 
actual  knowledge  :  but  we  must  remember  that  when  we  speak 
of  the  activity  of  the  mind  exerting  itself  in  such  a  manner 
that  there  arises  knowledge,  it  is  upon  this  that  we  must  sup- 
pose it  exerting  itself,  or  upon  something  in  so  far  as  it  has 
this  character,  not  upon  something  which  has  its  form  and 
character,  so  as  to  be  known,  already. 

In  the  book,  that  which  lies  before  me,  independent  of  my 
understanding  it,  is  a  chaos  of  shapes  and  lines :  that  which 
lies  before  me,  and  I  understand  (supposing  I  understand  it), 
is  the  history  of  Alexander's  campaign.  Our  language,  in  our 
speaking  of  the  universe  and  of  our  advancing  knowledge  of  it, 
should  follow  this  analogy.  What  lies  before  us  men  in  the 
universe,  independent  of  our  or  anybody's  perceiving,  who  is 

16—2 


244 


THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  NATURE. 


[chap. 


there  that  shall  say  ?  is  there  any  meaning  in  saying  that  any- 
thing  does?  What  lies  before  us,  and  we  perceive,  is  the 
universe,  or  what  we  call  the  universe,  in  all  its  particulars. 

But  let  it  be  observed  (and  the  illustration  is  equally  good 
for  the  showing  us  this),  what  we  want  to  know,  what  is  the 
real  thing  to  be  known,  is  what  we  do  come  to  know,  or  advance 
more  and  more  towards  knowing :  this  inform  matter  of  know- 
ledge is  not  the  thing  in  itself,  or  anything  deserving  the  name  of 
a  substratum ;  knowing  is  superinducing  form  upon,  i,  e.  thinking 
rightly  about,  this  matter  of  knowledge,  and  it  is  merely  in- 
congruous to  lament  or  to  feel  humbled  because  it  cannot  be 
known  otherwise  than  by  being  thought  rightly  about.  The 
characters  are  our  road  to  the  knowledge  of  the  contents  of  the 
book.  The  notion  of  the  thing  in  itself  and  the  unknowable 
substratum  seems  to  me  to  be  as  if,  in  the  case  of  the  book, 
instead  of  learning  Sanscrit,  I.  should  occupy  myself  in  thinking 
what  the  characters  are  independent  of  their  being  Sanscrit  or 
a  language.    No  knowledge  lies  that  road. 

And  on  the  other  hand,  as  the  inform  matter  of  knowledge 
is  no  thing  in  itself y  so  neither  is  the  real  thing  in  itself,  the 
true  object  of  knowledge  (in  this  case  the  history  of  Alexander's 
campaign),  something  that  the  characters  hide  from  us,  but 
something  which  they  guide  us  to.  The  coming  to  understand 
them  is  the  coming  to  understand  what  is  in  them  or  what  they 
contain — different  as  the  knowledge  of  them  is  from  the  know- 
ledge of  this  latter,  the  attaining  to  the  one  of  these  things 
is  the  attaining  to  the  other. 

This  same  fruitful  metaphor  may  illustrate  (for  we  must 
remember  that  it  is  all  but  illustration)  something  more  about 
relativism.  Using  language  similar  to  that  of  Sir  William 
Hamilton  on  which  I  some  time  ago  commented,  we  might  say 
that  there  is  a  double  relativeness  in  the  knowledge  which  we 
have  from  the  book  of  Alexander's  campaign  (the  thing  in  itself 
or  real  existence) ;  we  know  not  it,  but  only  a  modification  of  it, 
viz.  the  knowledge  or  opinion  which  the  writer  of  the  book  had 
of  it:  and  we  know  this  only  through  our  knowledge  of  the 
Sanscrit  language,  as  we  know  what  we  know  only  through  our 
own  special  faculties. 

Now  of  course  there  might  exist  an  account  of  Alexander  s 


XII.] 


THE  INTERPRETATION   OP  NATURE. 


245 


campaign  in  Greek  written  by  a  dififerent  person  from  the* 
writer  of  my  account  of  it,  and  another  person  might  know  that 
He  and  I  should  then  know  Alexander's  campaign  differently, 
that  is,  should  have,  to  a  certain  extent,  different  opinions  about 
it.     And  what  I  want  observed  is,  that  there  is  no  meaning  in 
describing  this  state  of  things  (and  the  parallel  is  exact  with 
Sir  William  Hamilton's  language)  as  our  having  two  different 
relative  knowledges  of  the  history  of  the  campaign,  as  our  not 
knowing  the  history  iUelf  of  the  campaign,  but  only  a  modifi- 
cation of  it— of  course  this  is  so,  but  it  is  simply  because  the 
knowledge  is  incomplete;  and  so  far  as  we  do  know  or  as  there 
is  knowledge,  what  we  do  know  is  the  history  itself  of  the  cam- 
paign, and  nothing  else.     In  the  one  case  the  one  language  and 
the  one  author's  view,  in  the  other  case  the  other  language  and 
the  other  author's  view,  are  successive  stages  on  the  road  to  sorne 
knowledge  of  the  actual  history,  and  we  pass  by  thqm  to  this. 
The  deceptiveness  of  the  relativist  view  is  in  this,  that  it  sug- 
gests  that  there  is  one  sort  of  knowledge  proper  for  people  to 
whom  one  modification  of  existence  is  turned  and  who  have  one 
set  of  faculties,  and  another  for  another.    But  these,  as  the 
illustration  illustrates  to  us,  are  only  stages  towards  the  attain- 
ment of  the  knowledge  which  is  beyond  them,  which,  so  far 
as  it  is  knowledge,  is  necessarily  the  same  for  all,  and  is  un- 
relative. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

SUBSTANCE  AND  MEDIUM. 

The  ideas  which  Dr  Whewell  gives  seem  to  go  each  of  them 
through  a  very  different  history.  Some  are  seen  with  tolerable 
distinctness  almost  from  the  first:  some  are  for  a  long  time 
without  there  being  any  suspicion  or  glimpse  of  them:  and 
some  are  at  the  first  most  vaguely  apprehended  or  most  strangely 
misapprehended. 

The  supposition  that  in  them  is  the  element  of  certainty  or 
trustworthiness  in  our  knowledge  seems  to  have  arisen  from 
observation  of  the  first  of  these  three  kinds,  to  which  belong 
space  and  time,  the  foundations  of  geometry  and  arithmetic: 
and  to  apply  this  supposition  to  the  other  kinds,  seems  extraor- 
dinarily difficult. 

As  '  polarity '  belongs  to  the  second  kind,  so  I  suppose  '  sub- 
stance '  does  to  the  third. 

Ideas  of  this  third  sort  appear  to  pass  through  three  stages,  not 
at  all  like  to,  but  still  something  in  the  manner  of,  M.  Comte's 
three  stages  of  thought.  First  a  stage  of  most  wild  vagueness  : 
second,  perhaps,  one  of  logical  or  philosophical  consideration  or 
rendering:  third,  the  clear  and  developed  stage. 

Whether  or  not  'resemblance'  goes  through  these  three 
stages,  I  think  Dr  Whewell's  '  substance '  does. 

So  far  as  the  first  of  these  stages  is  of  interest  and  import- 
ance, it  can  only  be  so  in  a  very  wide  and  general  consideration 
of  it,  such  as  with  reference,  for  instance,  to  the  constitution  of 
the  universe  or  of  matter,  is  contained  in  various  portions  of  Dr 
Whewell's  book.  The  history  of  early  human  speculation  about 
anything  is  most  interesting.  But  it  can  go  very  little  way 
towards  helping  us  to  the  right  idea  or  portion  of  truth  which 
such  very  vague  speculations  may  contain. 


CHAP.    XIII.]  SUBSTANCE   AND  MEDIUM. 


247 


And  what  Dr  Whewell  says  about  such  early  speculation 
at  the  beginning  of  his  chapter  on  the  idea  of  'substance'  I 
cannot  enter  into  at  all.  It  is  exceedingly  likely  that  in  the 
minds  of  some  philosophers  the  'gigni  e  nilo  nil'— that  nothing 
can  be  produced  of  nothing— and  views  similar  to  it,  may  have 
represented  early  speculations  about  the  constitution  of  matter 
which  chemical  investigation  will  now  justify :  but  surely  it  is 
not  right  to  speak  of  any  notion  of  this  kind,  in  one  and  a  con- 
sistent sense,  as  '  current  as  an  axiom  among  the  early  philo- 
sophers of  Greece',  and  to  caU  it  'a  steady  keeping  hold  of  the 
Idea  of  substance'.  There  is  not  anything  which  can  be  caUed 
either  currency  or  tangible  idea. 

And  so  far  as  there  is,  it  is  surely  something  entirely  dif- 
ferent from  the  logical  notion  of  the  idea  of  substance  to  which 
Dr  Whewell  then  proceeds.  The  principle  that  '  nothing  can 
be  produced  from  nothing'  of  the  material  philosophers,  and 
the  maxim  of  the  logical  philosophers,  that  every  property  must 
be  a  property  of  something,  or  must  inhere  in  a  subject  or  sub- 
stance, seem  to  me  to  have  nothing  at  all  in  common :  and  the 
fact  that  they  may  be,  and  perhaps  often  have  been,  brought 
into  relation,  appears  to  me  to  show  that  what  we  are  dealing 
with  here  is  simply  the  history  of  human  speculation,  full  of 
interest,  but  fuU  of  error,  and  that  it  is  not  to  this  history  that 
we  must  look  in  our  search  for  'idea'  as  'certainty'  and  what 

we  can  rest  in. 

I  have  commented  on  Mr  Mill's  notion  of  substratum  or 
substance.  That  of  Dr  WheweU  here  should  be,  in  the  view 
of  both  of  them,  worse,  as  it  is  decidedly  more  '  ontologicaF, 
and  with  both  of  them  'ontology'  appears  a  term  of  reproa<jh\ 

1  Mr  MiU's  horror  of  Ontology  we  have  formerly  seen-for  Dr  Whewell's  I 
refer  to  such  passages  as  his  character  of  Sir  William  Hamilton  {Hiit.  ScmU.  Ideas, 
Vol  II  p  37)     "  This  writer  is  a  man  of  unquestionable  acuteness  and  very  exten- 
*'  sive  reading  :  but  his  acuteness  shows  itself  in  barren  Ontological  distinctions 
''  which  appear  to  me  to  be  of  the  same  character  as  the  speculations  of  the  emment 
"  schoolmen  of  the  most  sterile  periods  of  Uie  dark  ages.     That  he  should  have  no 
"  conception  of  progressive  or  inductive  science  is  not  wonderful,  when  we  recoUect 
"  that  he  holds,  as  an  important  part  of  his  philosophy,  that  the  study  of  mathematics 
'*  perverts  and  obscures  the  mind."  I  quote  this  passage  just  to  show  how    ontolo- 
gicaV  is  used  as  a  stone  to  fling  at  a  dog,  and  in  order  to  mention,  that  I  thmk 
Sir  William  HamUton's  error,  reaUy,  is  the  making  too  much  of  logic  and  Oie  occa- 


248 


SUBSTANCE   AND   MEDIUM. 


[chap. 


"  An  apple,"  says  Dr  Whewell,  "  which  is  red,  and  round,  and 
"  hard,  is  not  merely  redness,  and  roundness,  and  hardness : 
"  these  circumstances  may  all  alter  while  the  apple  remains  the 
"  same  apple.  Behind  or  under  the  appearances  which  we  see, 
"  we  conceive  something  of  which  we  think :  or  to  use  the 
"  metaphor  which  obtained  currency  among  the  ancient  philo- 
''sophers,  the  attributes  and  qualities  which  we  observe  are 
"  supported  by  and  inherent  in  something :  and  this  something 
"  is  called  a  substratum  or  substance — that  which  stands  beneath 
*'  the  apparent  quahties  and  supports  them^".  And  further  on  : 
"  The  supposition  of  the  existence  of  substance  is  so  far  from 
"  being  uncertain,  that  it  canies  with  it  irresistible  conviction, 
"and  substance  is  necessarily  conceived  as  something  which 
"cannot  be  produced  or  destroyed''".  If  this  is  not  'ontology' 
I  do  not  know  what  is :  not  that  its  being  ontology  is  any 
reproach  in  my  eyes,  but  its  being,  as  I  conceive  it  to  be, 
wrong. 

The  conviction  which  attaches  to  the  supposition  of  the 
existence  of  substances  is  in  Dr  Whewell's  view  of  a  double 
nature  :  (1)  "  The  Axiom  of  the  Indestructibility  of  Substance 
**  (the  principle  mentioned  a  short  time  since,  that  nothing  can 
"  be  produced  out  of  nothing)  proves  the  existence  of  the  Idea 
"  of  Substance,  just  as  the  axioms  of  geometry  and  arithmetic 
"prove  the  existence  of  the  ideas  of  space  and  number''". 
And  (2),  "  We  unavoidably  assume  that  the  qualities  and  pro- 
"  perties  which  we  observe  are  properties  of  things : — that  the 
"adjective  implies  a  substantive : — that  there  is,  besides  the 
"  external  characters  of  things,  something  of  which  they  are  the 
"  characters*". 

sional  misapplication  of  it,  in  the  same  way  as  may  be  readily  done,  and  as  I 
think  Dr  Whewell  in  a  slight  degrees  does,  with  mathematics.  I  offer  no  apology 
for  Sir  William  Hamiltjon's  illiberal  depreciation  of  mathematics.  But  progressive 
or  inductive  science  is  no  more  connected  with  mathematics  than  it  is  with  logic. 
Both  are  alike  useful  in  their  place,  and  both  may  be  pursued  into  vain  sterilities 
or  misapplied.  The  best  thing  for  both  of  them  is  to  be  earnestly  enlisted  in  aid  of 
progressive  science.  Dr  Whewell  has  worked  bard  so  to  enlist  mathematics— but 
I  think  Sir  William  Hamilton  endeavoured  to  do  the  same  with  logic— perhaps  not 
with  equal  success.  Nor  am  I  satisfied  that  the  Scholastic  speculations  were  alto- 
gether so  sterile. 

*  ffiat.  Scient.  Ideas,  Vol.  ii.  p.  30. 

•^^•P-3«.  3/6.  p.  31.  *i6.  p.  30. 


Xlli.] 


SUBSTANCE   AND   MEDIUM. 


249 


It  seems  to  me,  that  Dr  WhewelFs  view  of  substance  is 
'  ontology',  while  that  of  Mr  Mill  and  I  suppose  of  Sir  William 
Hamilton  is  what  I  call  '  notionalism' :  and  I  allude  to  this,  to 
illustrate  the  difference  between  these:  the  ontology  in  my 
view  is  the  better  of  the  two.  With  Dr  Whewell,  the  '  sub- 
stance* of  the  apple  is  something  behind  and  under  the  appear- 
ances or  apparent  qualities  which  we  see,  and  is  also  something 
as  to  which  we  necessarily  conceive  that  it  cannot  be  produced 
or  destroyed.  With  Mr  Mill,  as  I  understand,  the  substance 
of  the  apple  would  be  an  unknown  and  unknowable  substratum 

of  its  qualities. 

The  former  of  these  notions  seems  to  me  exactly  the  same 
as  that  of  the  scholastic  philosophers  who  conceived  that  a  thing 
might  be  transsubstantiated,   or  have  its  substance   changed, 
without  any  change  in  its  apparent  qualities :  I  call  it,  as  dis- 
tinct from  the  other,  'ontology',  because  this  substance  is  con- 
ceived as  the  proper  matter,  as  first  matter  as  yet  undrest,  and 
if  we  do  not  know  it,  there  seems  no  reason  in  the  nature  of 
things  why  we  should  not.    I  caU  the  other  '  notionalism',  be- 
cause it  depends  solely  upon  the  realizing,  in  my  view  quite 
mis-realizing,  of  logical  terms.    Dr  Whewell's  view  it  will  be 
seen  depends  partly  on  this,  but  incorporates  with  it  the  view 
of  the  substance  being  the  real  matter,  that  of  which  all  things 
consist,  which  can  neither  be  added  to  nor  diminished  :  putting 
together,  it  seems  to  me,  two  things  quite  incongruous,  but 
giving  a  kind  of  reality  to  the  idea  of  substance,  due  to  this 
latter  incorporated  view.     For  if  we  do  like  to  call  the  ultimate 
•  element  or  elements  of  reality  in  the  universe,  so  far  as  we  can 
discover  or  imagine  them, '  substance ',  this  notion  is  important 
and  may  be  most  fertile :    material  substance,    as  a  physical 
notion,  is  well  enough. 

But  from  every  possible  point  of  view,  the  notion  of  this  sub- 
stance being  the  same  with  substance  as  the  support  of  qualities 
is  a  confusion,  as  I  presume  was  seen  by  the  better  of  the  school- 
men -.—the  substance  of  a  body  which  supports  its  qualities  is  not 
its  substantial  matter  at  least  by  itself,  but  its  substantial /oitm. 
So  far  as  we  are  not  afraid  of  ontology,  the  substantial  matter 
of  a  thing  and  its  substantial  form  may  together  be  conceived 
to  constitute  its  reality:  what  is  really  meant  by  this  is,  as 


■•4.V 


■;^ 


,  i 


I 


250 


SUBSTANCE   AND   MEDIUM. 


[chap. 


I  should  express  it  and  already  have  expressed  it,  that  '  a  thing' 
consists  of  various  features,  characters,  or  qualities  if  we  like 
to  use  the  word  in  our  own  way,  which  form  a  scale  from  ab- 
stractness  to  concreteness,  and  that  the  characters  of  a  thing 
which  are  ia  the  higher  part  of  the  scale  which  communicate 
more  specially  with  the  intellect  may  be  called  its  form,  while 
those  in  the  lower  part  which  communicate  with  the  nerves  of 
the  body  may  be  called  its  matter.  But  to  put  in  the  case 
of  the  apple  the  substantial  matter,  or  material  substance,  as  the 
support  of  qualities,  is  as  I  have  said  confusion  on  every  view. 

Setting  aside  this  confusion,  the  difficulty  or  confusion  as  to 
the  notion  of  substance  or  substratum  of  any  kind  has  to  do 
with  our  old  enemy,  the  division  of  truth  or  reality  between  the 
thing  and  the  mind.  "  Behind  or  under  the  appearances  (of  the 
"apple)  that  we  see",  says  Dr  Whewell,  "we  conceive  some- 
"  thing  of  which  we  think".  This  is  the  same  thing  we  have 
seen  so  often  before,  two  views  put  together  which  will  not  go 
together,  while  either  by  itself  represents  the  fact. .  "  Behind 
"the  appearances  (which  are  what  we  describe  ourselves  as 
"  seeing) J  there  is  something  of  which  we  think".  That  is  one 
view.  Or,  we  see  something,  and  this  we  describe  as  appear- 
ance or  sensible  quality :  but  we  conceive  something  as  behind 
this,  and  this  we  call — what  we  will;  'substance',  'form',  'idea'. 
That  is  the  other  view.  But  '  we  conceive  something  of  which 
we  think*  is  not  significant.  We  may  say.  We  conceive  some- 
thing, with  a  belief  which  we  call  belief  in  its  existence :  then 
there  it  is  for  us :  that,  so  far  as  we  are  concerned,  is  its  ulti- 
mate being.  Or,  from  the  other  side ;  there  is  something,  and 
it  so  happens  that  this  something  presents  itself  to  our  thought: 
its  thus  presenting  itself  is  what  we  mean  by  saying  that  we 
think  of  it  or  conceive  it :  and  this,  so  far  as  it  is  concerned,  is 
the  meaning  of  its  being  known. 

The  most  formal  part  of  the  reality  of  a  thing  may  he  what 
we  know  first  about  it,  or  may  be  what  we  know  last,  or 
may  be  what  we  in  fact  cannot  come  at  at  all :  that  is  matter 
of  accident.  To  take  a  plough,  as  something  familiar  and  at  hand : 
the  thinghood  of  that,  that  is,  the  reason  of  there  being  such  a 
notion  in  men's  heads  and  such  a  word  in  the  dictionary,  lies 
mainly  in  the  purpose  of  it,  viz.  to  turn  up  the  ground  in  a  par- 


XIII.] 


SUBSTANCE   AND  MEDIUM. 


251 


ticular  (say  sideways)  manner.    This  'idea',  'fonn',  'substance', 
of  a  plough  is  what  we  in  England  commonly  come  to  know 
first  about  it :  we  are  told,  there  is  something  used  to  turn  up 
the  ground,  and  it  is  called  a  plough :  we  have  got  the  sub- 
stance or  idea  to  make   our  logical  subject  of,   and  we   add 
according  to  circumstances  the  qualities  or  predicates— that  is 
woodenness,  redness,  going  upon  wheels,  or  as  the  case  may  be- 
Supposing  a  plough  abandoned  in   Australia,  and  found  by 
savages  who  wonder  at  it  much :  they  will  clearly  call  it  some- 
thing, that  is,  it  will  be  a  subject  with  them  for  predicates,  but 
probably  they  will  never  find  out  what  it  was  meant  for  or  what 
work  it  will  do:  they  will  then  reason,  I  suppose,  about  it  much 
as  we  do  about  the  universe :  they  will  say  that  the  name  which 
they  give  it  represents  something  mysterious  and  unknowable, 
beyond  the  reach  of  human  faculties :  or  they  might  with  more 
truth,  though  more  ontology,  get  towards  the  mystery  by  con- 
sidering, perhaps  not  indeed  that  if  instead  of  being  wooden, 
and  red,  and  on  wheels,  it  was  iron,  and  blue,   and  without 
wheels,  it  would  be  the  same  plough  with  one  which  they  had 
seen  of  the  former  character  (as  the  apple  might  be  the  same 
apple  ^),  but  that  it  might  be  a  plough  or  that  there  was  some- 
thing about  it  the  same,  and  in  that  case  they  would  have  the 
notion  of  the  genus  plough  (or  whatever  they  called  it),  which 
would  be  some  way  towards  the  meaning  or  purpose  of  it. 

I  will  now  speak  about  Dr  Whewell's  idea  of  a  medium,  the 
idea  which  belongs  to  the  secondary  mechanical  sciences,  as 
Optics  and  Acoustics. 

What  I  have  said  about  'sensation'  is,  that  it  involves  two 
facts ;  one,  a  corporeal  communication  with  some  part  of  the 
universe ;  the  other,  a  feeling  or  unit  of  consciousness  contem- 
poraneous with  this. 

This  communication,  thus  widely  meant,  is  of  course  a  vague 
term,  and  in  my  use  it  represents  a  relation  of  one  part  of  our 
body  to  another,  and  of  parts  of  our  body  with  space,  as  well  as 
a  relation  of  certain  nerves  of  our  body  or  certain  sensorially 
nervous  surfaces  with  some  independent  material  substance 
whose  contact  with  them  is  accompanied  with  a  feeling. 

1  Dr  Whewell  has  judiciously  chosen  very  fugitive  and  superficial  qualities  of 
the  apple  for  his  substance  to  underlie. 


252 


SUBSTANCE   AND   MEDIUM. 


[chap. 


'    \ 


I  have  said  that  for  good  phenomenalism  or  physical  science 
what  is  wanted  is  as  much  as  possible  to  put  ourselves  and 
our  manner  of  perceiving  out  of  consideration.  The  physical 
world  is  what  it  is,  and  it  is  of  the  nature  of  an  accident  of  it 
that  it  is  known  by  us  through  the  instrumentality  by  which  we 
do  know  it. 

But  there  are  certain  physical  sciences,  in  respect  of  which 
this  seems  at  first  impossible.  We  seem  obliged,  in  regard  of 
the  physical  science  of  light,  or  optics,  to  have  more  or  less  of 
that  confusion  caused  by  considering  the  subject  and  object,  or 
the  two  sides  in  the  relation  of  knowledge,  independent  of  each 
other,  and  yet  modified  the  one  by  the  other,  which  is  what  I 
have  tried  as  much  as  possible,  in  the  more  general  view  of 
knowledge,  to  prevent. 

The  contact  between  certain  sensorially  nervous  surfaces  of 
our  body  and  certain  material  substances,  as  between  the  retina 
and  light,  the  ear  and  vibrating  air,  the  nostrils  or  palate  and 
that  chemical  efflux,  or  whatever  it  may  be,  from  bodies,  which 
we  describe  as  their  smell  and  taste,  is  described  by  Dr  Whewell 
as  'perception  through  a  medium'.  It  will  be  readily  under- 
stood, from  what  I  have  said,  that  I  do  not  consider  this  a  good 
description.  There  is  actual  contact  in  each  case  between  the 
material  substances  and  the  nerves,  and  in  taste  or  smell  the 
feeling  or  consciousness  accompanying  this  is  of  a  very  simple 
nature.  In  the  eye,  on  the  other  hand,  besides  the  contact 
between  the  light  and  the  retina,  there  is  a  most  complicated 
process,  and  the  accompanying  sensation  is  most  complicated, 
and  is  described  by  us  as  the  perceiving  of  a  perhaps  distant 
object:  but  the  describing  this  as  the  perceiving  through  a 
medium  is  a  mixture  of  logic  or  philosophy  on  the  one  side, 
with  physics  or  phenomenalism  on  the  other,  of  the  kind  which 
I  have  endeavoured  to  condemn  and  to  prevent. 

The  idea  therefore  of  a  medium  does  not  seem  to  me  in  any 
respect  a  scientific  one,  nor  do  I  see  how  it  can  be  in  any  way 
even  developed  into  truth. 

I  have  said  that  Dr  Whewell*s  parallel  consideration  of  the 
growth  of  knowledge  in  the  individual  and  its  growth  in  the  ra<;e 
seems  to  me  interesting  and  fruitful.  Here  however,  I  should 
think  it  misleads.     I  speak  with  diffidence  as  to  physical  science, 


XIII-l 


SUBSTANCE  AND   MEDIUM. 


253 


but  I  should  question  whether  the  distinction  between  primary 
and  secondary  qualities,  which  isamatter  of  our  sensation,  not  ot 
nature  considered  independently  of  it,  furnished  a  good  principle 
of  classification  or  arrangement  of  the  latter.     The  difference  be- 
tween primary  and  secondary  qualities  of  matter,  or  as  we  might 
with  equal  correctness  say,  primary  or  secondary  sensation  on  our 
part  is  verv  mainly  in  this,  that  the  secondary  qualities,  looked 
at  in  their  kation  to  the  physical  world,  have  as  compared  with 
the  primary,  something  of  an  accidental  character.   To  use  a  word 
which  a  short  time  since,  I  quoted  from  Dr  WheweU:  putting 
aU  reli<^ious  considerations  for  a  moment  aside:  I  look  upon  it  as 
a  thing  which  only  in  the  very  minutest  degree  possible  can  be 
said  to  Juippen  to  he  so,  that  the  universe  has  the  qualities  which 
it  has,  or  that,  coiTespondingly,  the  reason  or  mind  of  reasonable 
beings  acts  as  it  does.     Coming  then  to  particular  qualities : 
the  first  portion  of  the  above  sentence  is  still  true :  it  is  not  a 
thinc^  that  (with  more  than  very  slight  significance  of  the  word) 
happens  to  he  so  that  space  exists :  but  with  more  significance 
though  stm  not  with  much,  it  might  be  said  to  be  a  thing  which 
happens  to  be  so  that  we  men  perceive  it,  for  we  just  might 
have  been  passive  only,  without  power  or  notion  of  movement : 
and  in  the  same  way  we  may  perhaps  say,  there  just  might  be 
other  primary  qualities  of  the  universe  which  we  are  not  consti- 
tuted in  such  a  manner  as  to  be  aware  of     In  the  same  manner 
it  is  not  ^t  aU  a  thing  that  happens  to  he  so  only  that  there  is 
this  or  that  secondary  quality  (as  we  call  them)  in  the  universe  : 
ea^h  one  of  them  belongs  to  the  universe  as  much  as  space  does : 
but  it  is  a  thing  which  in  a  very  eminent  degree  happens  to  he  so 
that  we  men,  or  as  we  might  rather  say,  we  terrestrial  animals, 
we  the  terrestrial  zoocosm  altogether,  are  with  more  or  less 
of  directness  aware  or  percipient  of  this  or  that  secondary  quality 
In  order  for  this  percipience,  or  sentience,  we  require,  it  would 
appear   to  have  particular  material  nerves  with  very  special 
susceptibilities,  and  an  organism,  perhaps  a  most  complicated 
instrument,  for  bringing  about  the  contact  between  the  material 
substance  and  the  nerve.    This  our  special  sensive  organization 
may  be  caHed  an  accident  of  the  universe  with  a  much  higher 
deg'ree  of  significance  of  the  word  than  if  we  called  the  existence 
of  oxygen,  or  air,  or  light,  or  heat,  an  accident  of  it:  and  the 


s 


I'    2i 


254 


SUBSTANCE   AND    MEDIUM. 


[chap. 


more  so,  since  we  are  aware  indirectly  of  various  circumstances 
or  qualities  in  the  universe,  such  as  magnetism,  for  which  we 
might  conceivably  have  had  a  special  sensive  organization,  an  eye 
or  ear,  so  as  to  perceive  them  directly  as  secondary  qualities. 

Physical  or  phenomenaUst  knowledge,  as  I  have  said,  should 
involve  the  notion  of  knowledge  as  adstance,  that  is,  it  should  be 
independent  of  the  manner,  as  regards  the  lower  and  more  con- 
crete circumstances  of  knowledge,  in  which  it  was  known :  as 
regards  the  higher  or  more  abstract,  it  could  not  be  so,  and  this 
belongs  to  its  being,  as  I  have  all  along  called  it,  an  abstraction, 
that  is,  a  notion  which  cannot  be  carried  thoroughly  out.     In 
other  words,  our  physical  science  should  be  true  so  far  as  it  had 
or  would  have  any  significance,  not  for  beings  with  other  minda 
than  ours,  nor  for  beings  without  limbs  which  they  could  move 
(this  would  be  impossible),  but  for  beings  with  a  different  set  of 
senses  from  ours,  so  far  as  this  is  conceivable  under  the  above 
conditions.     Our  physical  science  should  be  such,  that  if  we  lost 
as  a  race  one  of  our  present  senses,  and  all  the  mental  circum- 
stances associated  with  it,  yet  the  secondary  quality  which  it 
took  cognizance  of  should  be  still  more  or  less  indirectly  indi- 
cated to  us:  and  similarly  that  if  we  had  a  new  special  nerve 
and  sensive  power  for  some  secondary  quality  now  only  indi- 
rectly known  by  us  to  exist,  our  present  knowledge  should  be 
absorbed  indeed  but  should  still  be  confirmed  and  hold  true  so 
far  as  it  went.  • 

These  principles  are  difficult  perhaps  to  understand,  and 
certainly  to  apply,  but  I  think  they  hold  good  at  least  to  this 
extent,  that  the  scheme  for  arranging  physical  science  should  not 
be  made  to  depend  upon  our  manners  of  perception.  I  do  not 
as  it  is  quite  understand  Dr  Whe well's  arrangement  as  he  does 
make  it  thus  to  depend :  how  for  instance  his  secondary  me- 
chanical sciences,  or  sciences  associated  with  secondary  qualities^ 
separate  themselves  definitely  from  the  mechanics  of  fluids,  &c. 
on  the  one  side,  and  from  the  chemistry  of  heat,  &c.  on  the 
other:  and  there  seems  no  science  at  all,  nor  place  for  one, 
corresponding  to  his  'media '  in  the  case  of  taste  and  smell \ 

^  Of  course  I  am  not  condemning  the  use  of  the  term  'medium'  for  what 
is  between  our  eye  and  the  thing  we  say  we  see  (and  the  same  for  other  senses)  if 
we  like  to  use  the  term — but  on  sight,  or  rather  on  the  use  of  language  in 
respect  of  the  sense  of  sight,  I  should  like  to  say  a  little  in  the  next  part. 


XIII.] 


SUBSTANCE   AND   MEDIUM. 


255 


Optics  and  Acoustics,  the  latter  specially  (both  of  which 
I  speak  of  very  diffidently)  do  cause  I  presume  some  difficulty. 
But  I  suppose  that  the  general  physical  science  of  light  and 
the  physiology  of  vision  may   be  kept   separate:   when  the 
former  is  known,  all  in  the  eye  that  is  in  front  of  the  retina 
is  simply  a  self-adjusting  optical  instrument:  the  laws  of  the 
self-adjustment,  and  the  circumstances  of  the  retina,  belong  to 
the  physiology  of  vision ;  not  to  Optics  as  photology.     As  to 
Acoustics,  such   science  in  it  as  is  separable  from  the  Phy- 
siology of  Hearing  is  I  suppose  of  the  very  delicate  vibra- 
tions of  a  fluid:  the  fact  of  these  vibrations  we  discover  by 
other  means  than  hearing,  in  fact  could  not  discover  them  by 
that,  any  more  than  we  can  now  discover  by  looking  or  sight 
whether  light  is  undulation  or  rectilinear  motion :  as  to  Acoustics 
therefore,  what  we  have  besides  the  Physiology  of  Hearing  is  a 
science  which  /  suppose  is  a  branch  of  the  mechanics  of  fluids, 
and  which  is  independent  of  the  aerial  vibration  coming  into 
contact  with  our  ears,  though  suggested  by  its  doing  so. 
I  will  finish  by  quoting  a  long  passage  from  Dr  Whewell. 
It  is  as  follows:   "Though  the  fundamental  principles  of 
"  several  sciences  depend  upon  the  assumption  of  a  Medium 
"  of  Perception,  these  principles  do  not  at  all  depend  upon 
"  any  special  view  of  the  Process   of  our  perceptions.     The 
"  mechanism  of  that  process  is  a  curious  subject  of  considera- 
"  tion ;  but  it  belongs  to  physiology,  more  properly  than  either 
"  to  metaphysics,  or  to  those  branches  of  physics  of  which  we 
*'  are  now  speaking.     The  general  nature  of  the  process  is  the 
"  same  for  all  the  senses.     The  object  affects  the  appropriate 
"  intermedium ;  the  medium,  through  the  proper  organ,  the 
"  eye,  the  ear,  the  nose,  affects  the  nerves  of  the  particular 
"  sense ;  and,  by  these,  in  some  way,  the  sensation  is  conveyed 
"  to  the  mind.     But  to  treat  the  impression  upon  the  nerves 
"  as  the  act  of  sensation  which  we  have  to  consider,  would  be 
"  to  mistake  our  object,  which  is  not  the  constitution  of  the 
human  body,  but  of  the  human  mind.     It  would  be  to  mis- 
take one  link  of  the  chain  for  the  power  which  holds  the  end 
of  the  chain.     No  anatomical  analysis  of  the  corporeal  con- 
"  ditions  of  vision,  or  hearing,  or  feeling  warm,  is  necessary  to 
the  sciences  of  Optics,  or  Acoustics,  or  Thermotics. 


it 


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256 


SUBSTANCE   AND   MEDIUM. 


[chap. 


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*'  Not  only  is  this  physiological  research  an  extraneous  part 
"  of  our  subject,  but  a  partial  pui-suit  of  such  a  research  may 
"  mislead  the  inquirer.  We  perceive  objects  6y  means  of  certain 
"  media,  and  by  means  of  certain  impressions  on  the  nerves : 
"  but  we  cannot  with  propriety  say  that  we  perceive  either  the 
"  media  or  the  impressions  on  the  nerves.  What  person  in  the 
"  act  of  seeing  is  conscious  of  the  little  coloured  spaces  on  the 
"  retina  ?  or  of  the  motions  of  the  bones  of  the  auditory  ap- 
"paratus  whilst  he  is  hearing?  Surely,  no  one.  This  may 
"  appear  obvious  enough,  and  yet  a  writer  of  no  common  acute- 
"  ness,  Dr  Brown,  has  put  forth  several  very  strange  opinions, 
all  resting  upon  the  doctrine  that  the  coloured  spaces  on  the 
retina  are  the  objects  which  we  perceive;  and  there  are 
some  supposed  difficulties  and  paradoxes  on  the  same  sub- 
"ject  which  have  become  quite  celebrated  (as  upright  vision 
''  with  inverted  images),  arising  from  the  same  confusion  of 

"  thought'". 

I  have  quoted  the  passage  for  three  reasons. 

First,  because,  as  to  the  three  sciences  (so  to  speak)  of  Meta- 
physics, Physiology,  and  Physics,  it  seems  to  me  to  represent 
the  truth,  and  almost  makes  me  surprised  at  Dr  Whewell's  other 
language  which  I  have  been  criticizing. 

Next,  because,  what  more  than  anything  I  want  the  reader 
to  be  accustomed  to,  is  to  learn  from  passages  like  the  above 
what  is  to  be  learnt  from  them,  which  is  often  much,  without 
being  misled  by  their  language.  The  tree  (to  take  a  particular 
object),  we  are  told  in  the  passage,  affects  light,  light  through 
the  lenses  of  the  eye  affects  the  optic  nerve,  and  by  this  nerve  in 
some  way  the  sensation  is  conveyed  to  the  mind.  When  language 
like  this  is  used,  which  itself  is  no  harm,  let  the  reader  s  mind 
go  with  it.  We  may,  if  we  like  it,  call  the  action  of  the  various 
laws  of  chemistry  and  light  by  which  light  proceeding  from  the 
sun  is  partly  (if  it  is  so)  intercepted  from  our  eye  by  the  tree, 
partly  absorbed,  partly  transmitted  to  our  eye,  '  the  tree  affects 
light*.  There  is  one  use  then  of  the  word  *  affect*.  Again  we 
may  call  the  highly  complicated  process  which  finishes  with 
what  I  may  term  a  disturbance  of  the  optic  nerve  when  the  light 

1  Hist.  Scient.  Ideat,  Vol.  I.  p.  300. 


XIII.] 


SUBJECT   AND   MEDIUM, 


257 


reaches  the  retina,  'the  medium  affecting  the  nerves  of  the 
sense':  this  is  another  and  different  use  of  the  word  'affect*. 
Again,  we  may  call  this  affecting  of  the  nerve  by  the  medium 
'  a  sensation*,  and  we  may  say  that  the  nerve  *  in  some  way 
conveys  this  sensation  to  the  mind*.  Here  we  must  dismiss 
all  notion  of '  conveying*  meaning  moving  through  space,  trans- 
ferring from  one  thing  in  space  to  another  thing  in  space,  or 
anything  of  that  sort :  in  fact,  as  I  have  said,  I  do  not  see  what 
the  words  can  mean  more  than  that  there  is  a  feeling  or  con- 
sciousness contemporaneous  with  the  nervous  disturbance.  The 
*  impression*  upon  the  nerve  in  the  next  sentence  is  the  second 
'  affecting*  above,  and  is  quite  appropriate. 

Third,  I  quote  the  passage,  because  I  want  the  reader  to 
observe  that  the  very  same  process  which  Dr  Whewell  in  the 
first  paragraph  describes  as  the  object  affecting  the  medium,  the 
medium  affecting  the  nerve,  the  nerve  conveying  its  affectation 
(or  the  sensation)  to  the  mind,  he  describes  in  the  second  para- 
graph as  'our  perceiving  the  object  by  means  of  the  medium  and 
by  means  of  the  impression  on  the  nerve,  while  we  do  not  per- 
ceive either  the  impression  or  the  medium*.     These  two  ways  of 
putting  the  matter  (if  he  properly  attends,  in  the  way  which  I 
have  described  above,  to  the  language  of  the  first)  are  exactly 
the  two  ways  in  which  I  would  wish  the  reader  to  put  it,  only 
that,  for  his  life,  he  must  avoid  mixing  them.    The  act  of  his 
mind  is  'perceiving*:  he  perceives  the  object:  between  him  and 
the  object,  in  his  perception,  is  much  that  he  does  not  perceive, 
which  is  no  part  of  his  perception  of  the  object,  and  which  is 
only  matter  to  him  of  indirect  and  subsequent,  physiological 
and  physical,  knowledge.  When  physiology  and  physics  take  the 
matter  in  hand  to  give  him  this  knowledge,  they  proceed  in  a  dif- 
ferent direction:  they  describe  the  object  as  affecting  a  medium, 
and  describe  the  manner  of  its  affecting  it :  they  describe  the 
medium  as  affecting  a  nerve,  and  describe  the  manner  of  this 
again :  and  then  without  description,  for  here  they  are  brought 
to  a  halt,  they  simply  say  in  some  way  the  nerve  conveys  the 
sensation  to  the  mind.     I  cannot  conceive  language  more  fitted 
than  Dr  Whewell's  to  show  clearly  the  double   view   of  the 

same  process. 

But  the  view  which  I  think  will  be  learnt  from  a  good  deal 

17 


258 


SUBJECT   AND   MEDIUM.  [CHAP.  XIII. 


I 


of  Dr  Whewell's  book,  and  from  which  I  dissent,  is  that  by 
sensation  something  is  given  to  us  from  the  object :  that  to  this, 
by  perception  (or  in  whatever  way  it  is  described)  we  add  some- 
thing, to  wit  *  idea',  from  the  mind :  that  there  are  thus  two 
processes  instead  of  one  :  that  knowledge  is  divided  into  a  part 
from  the  object  and  a  part  from  the  mind :  the  former  some- 
times appearing  as  knowledge,  sometimes  as  not  knowledge: 
this  is  the  putting  of  the  two  views  together,  which  I  have 
urged  the  reader  to  avoid. 

But  on  this  I  have  said  enough. 

I  will  finish  with  remarking  again  upon  Dr  Whewell's  scien- 
tific ideas  that  when  the  notion  is  introduced  of  their  being 
progressive  and  developable  I  do  not  see  how,  as  ideas,  they 
can  preserve  any  character  of  being  original,  universal,  necessary, 
convictions,  or  in  any  respect  help,  as  ideas,  the  certainty  of 
knowledge.  But  though  the  notion  of  them  does  not  seem  to 
me  to  be  of  value  in  this  way,  I  think  it  is  in  many  others, 
some  of  which  I  have  mentioned. 


^ 


I  > 


I  now  close  this  part  of  my  work,  hoping  very  shortly  to 
pursue  the  subject.  In  the  interval,  I  trust  to  study  the  book 
of  Mr  Mill's  to  which  I  have  alluded  in  the  Introduction,  and  if 
I  have  done  him  any  injustice,  shall  have  an  opportunity  of 
correcting  it,  and  of  avowing  any  error  into  which  1  may  have 
fallen.  I  am  aware  of  some  imperfections  in  what  I  have  said 
about  him,  more  especially  obscurities  which  it  might  be  de- 
sirable to  make  clearer — now  this  will  be  done  better.  The 
next  Chapter  (or  one  soon  to  follow),  to  which  I  have  alluded 
by  anticipation  in  page  166,  was  intended  to  have  reference 
principally  to  him.  In  the  other  Chapters  I  shall  follow  out 
the  scheme  indicated  in  the  Introduction,  and  discuss  the  re- 
maining works  there  mentioned:  I  may  add  some  others  to 
them:  and  I  hope  to  finish  by  putting  the  views  here  given 
in  a  clearer  manner  than  I  have  been  able  to  do  in  the  course 
of  the  *  exploration ',  in  consequence  of  the  additional  hold  upon 
them  which  I  trust  this  may  have  given. 


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EXPLORATIO    PHILOSOPHICA 


PART   II 


aonton:   C.  J.   CLAY  and  SONS, 

CAMBRIDGE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS  WAREHOUSE, 

AVE   MARIA  LANE. 

«IaM0ta:   50,  WELLINGTON  STREET. 


leipjifl:   F.  A.  BBX)CKHAUS. 

1^  lork:   THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 

»ombag:    E.  SEYMOUR  HALE. 


|f?r-,^-'>-' 


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EXPLOKATIO   PHILOSOPHICA 


PAET   II 


BY 


JOHN  GROTE,  B.D. 


SENIOR    FELLOW    OF    TRINITY    COLLEGB 
AND    PROFESSOR   OF   MORAL   PHILOSOPHY   IN    THE    UNIVERSITY   OF   CAMBRIDGE 


EDITED  FOR  THE  SYNDICS  OF  THE  PBESS 


BY 


JOSEPH    BICKERSTETH    MAYOR,    M.A. 

HON.    FELLOW   OF   ST   JOHN's   COLLEGE,    CAMBRIDGE 
HON.    LITT.D.    OF  DUBLIN    UNIVERSITY 


1 1-'' 


CAMBRIDGE 
AT    THE    UNIVERSITY    PRESS 

MDCCCC 

[All  Rights  resei-ved] 


<. 


PREFACE  BY  THE  EDITOR. 


CatntiTtlige : 

PRINTED   BY  J.  AND   C.    F.   CLAY, 
AT  THE    UNIVERSITY  PRESS. 


rpHE  First  Part  of  the  Exploratio  appeared  in  1865.  In 
p.  XXX  of  his  Introduction  the  Author  expresses  a  hope 
that  the  Second  Part  might  be  completed  in  a  month  or  two. 
He  mentions,  as  to  be  there  discussed,  the  views  of  Prof  Bain, 
Mr  Herbert  Spencer  (pp.  54.  70),  J.  D.  Morell  (p.  xxi), 
Sir  W.  Hamilton  (p.  87),  and  J.  S.  Mill  (p.  166),  with  special 
reference  to  his  Examination  of  Sir  W.  Hamilton's  Philosophy. 
He  also  speaks  of  dealing  more  at  length  with  the  Theory  of 
Vision  (p.  40);  and  concludes  the  book  (p.  258)  as  follows: 
"  The  next  chapter  (or  one  soon  to  follow)  will  have  reference 
principally  to  Mr  Mill.  In  the  other  chapters  I  shall  follow 
out  the  scheme  indicated  in  the  Introduction  and  discuss  the 
remaining  works  there  mentioned.  I  may  add  some  others  to 
them,  and  I  hope  to  finish  by  putting  the  views  here  given  in 
a  clearer  manner  than  I  have  been  able  to  do  in  the  course  of 
the  '  exploration,'  in  consequence  of  the  additional  hold  upon 
them  which,  I  trust,  this  may  have  given." 

Unhappily,  the  Second  Part  was  still  unfinished  at  the  time 
of  the  Author's  death  in  August  1866,  the  54th  year  of  his 
age.  He  left  to  his  literary  executor  a  great  mass  of  MSS.  to 
be  published  or  otherwise,  as,  and  how,  he  might  think  fit.  In 
the  exercise  of  the  discretion  thus  allowed  to  me,  I  brought 
out  the  Examination  of  the  Utilitarian  Philosophy  in  1870, 
explaining  in  the  Preface  my  reasons  for  beginning  with  this 


300483 


Yl 


PREFACE. 


PREFACE. 


Vll 


rather  than  with  the  Second  Part  of  the  Exploratio.  The 
reasons  there  stated  are  (1)  the  very  unfinished  condition  of 
the  latter,  (2)  the  fact  that  the  Author  attached  more  import- 
ance to  his  ethical  than  to  his  metaphysical  writings,  (3)  the 
probability  that  a  larger  number  of  readers  would  be  found  for 
the  easier  and  more  popular  subject. 

The  Examination  of  the  Utilitarian  Philosophy  was  followed 
in  1876  by  the  Moral  Ideals,  to  which  allusion  is  made  in  the 
Exploratio,  p.  vii,  in  the  words,  "  I  determined  to  put  together 
in  an  uncontroversial  form  what  seemed  to  me  to  be  the  truth, 
in  opposition  to  what  I  thought  error.*' 

Besides  these  treatises  the  following  papers  were  published 
from  time  to  time  in  the  periodicals  named  below : 

An  article  on  Materialism  (printed  as  chapters  I  and  II  of 
Book  III  in  the  present  volume).    Macmillan's  Magazine,  1867. 

On  a  Future  State.     Contemporary  Review,  1871. 

Thought  versus  Learning.     Good  Wordsj  Dec,  1871. 

Memoir  of  Leslie  Ellis.     Cont.  Rev.,  June,  1872. 

Papers  on  Glossology.  Journal  of  Philology,  1872  and 
1874. 

Montaigne  and  Pascal.     Cont.  Rev.,  July,  1877. 

Imaginary  Conversation  between  Mr  Grote  and  Socrates. 
Classical  Rev.,  March,  1889. 

A  small  selection  of  Sermons  was  also  published  in  1872  by 
Messrs  Deighton. 

The  very  limited  circulation  attained  by  the  three  philoso- 
phical treatises  gave  little  encouragement  to  publishing  anything 
more  of  the  same  character;  but  every  now  and  then  I  received 
letters  asking  what  was  being  done  about  the  continuation 
of  the  Eaoploratio;  and  early  in  1898  Mr  H.  W.  B.  Joseph, 
Fellow  of  New  College,  Oxford,  who  had  already  written  to  me 
on  the  subject  some  three  years  before,  made  another  appeal, 
stating  that  it  was  felt  by  many  in  Oxford  that  the  publication 
of  the  Second  Part  of  the  Exploratio  would  be  of  service  to  the 


cause  of  philosophy  in  England,  and  asking  whether  it  would 
be  possible  for  the  MS.  to  be  deposited  for  a  time  in  one  of 
the  Oxford  libraries,  with  a  view  to  its  being  consulted  by 
persons  approved  by  the  Librarian.  I  felt  that  I  had  no  right 
to  resist  an  appeal  of  this  kind,  which,  coming,  as  it  did,  from 
members  of  the  sister  University  after  a  lapse  of  35  years,  I 
believe  to  be  almost  unprecedented  in  the  annals  of  philosophy, 
and  in  answer  promised  Mr  Joseph  that,  if  he  could  let  me 
have  a  list  of  those  who  felt  with  him  in  the  matter,  I  would 
forward  it  to  the  Syndics  of  the  Cambridge  University  Press, 
offering  to  prepare  the  MS.  for  the  Press  if  they  would  make 
a  grant  towards  the  expense  of  printing.  The  result  was  (1)  a 
letter  to  me  signed  by  twenty-three  Oxford  Graduates,  almost 
all  of  them  Fellows  or  ex-Fellows  of  Colleges,  in  which  they 
expressed  their  desire  that  the  book  might  be  published,  and 
(2)  a  most  generous  offer  on  the  part  of  the  Cambridge  Press 
to  defray  the  whole  cost  of  publication. 

I  proceed  now  to  give  a  short  account  of  the  papers  which 
form  the  material  of  the  present  volume.  In  the  first  instance 
I  had  to  deal  with  those  which  were  evidently  intended  to  be 
included  in  the  *  rough  notes '  entitled  Exploratio  Philosophica. 
These  make  up  some  twenty  parcels,  with  nothing  to  mark 
their  intended  order,  and  most  of  them  without  any  title  or 
heading.  After  repeated  perusal  I  was  able  to  some  extent  to 
make  out  the  order  in  which  the  several  parcels  were  written, 
and  marked  them  accordingly  with  the  letters  of  the  Greek 
Alphabet ;  though  it  seemed  desirable  in  some  cases  to  adopt  a 
different  order  for  the  final  arrangement  in  chapters.  Thus  the 
1st  parcel,  containing  65  pages,  numbered  210  to  274  (amount- 
ing to  about  half  the  same  number  of  the  printed  pages),  seemed 
like  a  rough  draft  of  what  had  already  appeared  in  Exploratio, 
Part  I:  pp.  275 — 315  were  missing,  having  probably  been  used 
as  copy  for  the  same :  then  came  pp.  316 — 342,  marked  by  me 
(a),  which  form  a  kind  of  introduction  to  two  parcels,  marked 


I  m 


I 


i 


VIU 


PREFACE. 


by  me  (fi)  and  (7).  These  three  parcels  correspond  to  Chapters 
I,  IX,  X  of  the  present  volume.  The  parcel  marked  (8),  which 
contains  40  pages  on  the  Psychology  of  Locke,  Stewart,  &c.,  and 
parcel  (e),  containing  10  pages  on  Stewart's  account  of  Percep- 
tion, were  used  for  Ch.  II.  Parcel  marked  (f),  which  is  headed 
'A  propos  of  Cousin's  Lectures  on  Locke,  &c.,'  contained  18 
pages,  and  constitutes  the  present  Ch.  III.  Parcel  (rj)  contains 
64  pages  on  Berkeley,  and  constitutes  Ch.  XII.  Parcel  (0), 
containing  24  pages  on  Scepticism,  is  the  present  Ch.  VIII. 
Three  parcels  (^,  k,  X),  entitled  '  Impression,  Imagination,  Idea,* 
contain  together  68  pages,  and  are  now  divided  into  Chapters 
IV,  V,  VI,  and  VII.  Parcel  (v)  on  Sight,  containing  6  pages, 
is  the  present  Oh.  XI.  Parcel  (tt)  entitled  *Aphorismi 
Finales'  contains  17  pages,  and  is  printed  below  on  pp.  825 
foil.  Parcels  /a,  f,  o,  p,  containing  together  about  30  pages, 
were  omitted,  as  adding  nothing  new. 

A  second  set  of  papers  written  a  little  later  than  the  above, 
but  dealing  with  the  same  subjects,  were  divided  into  two 
parcels,  one  of  113  pages  entitled  'Self-self  and  Thought-self,* 
the  other  of  59  pages  entitled  'Perception,  etc'  These  now 
make  up  Book  II,  to  which  I  have  given  the  general  title 

*  Immediateness  and  Reflection,'  and  have  divided  it  into  eight 
chapters. 

A  third  set  of  papers  of  about  the  same  date  bore  the  title 

*  What  is  Materialism  ? '  They  were  divided  into  two  parts, 
containing  respectively  38  and  17  pages.  These  make  up  the 
three  chapters  of  Book  III.  That  which  appears  as  the  Fourth 
Book  was  written  as  a  comment  on  Mr  Cope's  criticism  of  the 
view  given  in  Grote's  Plato  of  the  argument  in  the  Theaetetus. 
The  MS.  consists  of  58  pages,  and  was  written,  as  I  learn  from 
the  Author's  diary,  between  June  29  and  July  2,  1866,  that  is 
less  than  two  months  before  his  death.  It  will  be  seen  that  I 
have  divided  it  into  three  chapters,  using  the  Protagorean 
maxim  as  the  general  heading.  Though  it  was  probably 
written  without  reference  to  the  Exploratio,  yet  it  contains  an 


I 


PREFACE. 


IX 


allusion  to  Part  T^,  and,  I  think,  will  be  felt  to  be  a  fitting 
supplement  to  the  preceding  Books.     Indeed,  in  my  opinion, 
nothing  in  this  volume  is  more  characteristic  of  the  Author,  or 
likely  to  be  of  more  value  at  the  present  time,  than  the  remarks 
on  the  Right  and  Duty  of  Private  Judgment  contained  in  Ch.  II. 
The  Fifth  Book  is  taken  from  a  series  of  papers  headed 
'Idealism  and  Positivism,'  containing  about  120  pages,  which 
were  originally  intended  to  form  an  Appendix  to  the  Examin- 
ation of  the  Utilitarian  Philosophy,  but  the  Author,  as  is  stated 
in  Exploratio,  p.  vii,  changed  his  mind,  thinking  it  better  '  to 
put  together  in  an  uncontroversial  form  the  intellectual  views 
on  which  the  moral  view  rested.'     As,  however,  there  is  much 
in  this  earlier  draft  which  is  not  included  in  the  First  Part  of 
the  Exploratio,  I  have  thought  it  well  to  append  it  to  the 
Second  Part,  dividing  it  into  three  chapters.     Of  the  '  Aphor- 
ismi   Finales'   I   have   already  spoken.     The  'Epilogue'  was 
written,  I  fancy,  before  the  publication  of  Part  /.,  and  would 
no  doubt  have  been  considerably  added  to,  if  the  Author  had 
lived  to  complete  Part  II. 

In  reading  the  criticisms  passed  by  the  Author  on  the 
writings  of  other  philosophers,  it  is  important  to  remember 
his  own  account  of  the  reasons  which  led  him  to  give  so  much 
space  to  such  criticism.  "I  care  not  in  the  least,"  he  says*, 
"to  dispute  what  anyone  says,  except  with  a  view  of  clearing 
up  my  own  thoughts  and  those  of  others."  "  Let  us  suppose 
Mr  Mill  to  be  A,  a  character  in  a  philosophical  discussion,  and 
if  the  actual  Mr  Mill  has  changed  his  views,  or  (which  is 
exceedingly  likely)  I  have  misunderstood  him,  then  let  it  not 
be  supposed  it  is  Mr  Mill  I  am  discussing  with  at  alP."  Again, 
speaking  of  his  doubt  as  to  the  exact  force  of  certain  statements 
of  Prof.  Ferrier,  he  says*,  "  When  I  say  that  I  agree  with  him, 
I  interpret  him  in  my  own  way,  and  if  anyone  disputes  that 
being  his   meaning,  I  have  no  care  to  maintain  that  it  is. 


>  See  below  p,  272. 


p.  XXlll. 


p.  XXX. 


p.  69. 


I 


X  PREFACE. 

What  I  say  then  is  not  applicable  to  Urn,  I  have  observed 
on  the  inutility  of  lengthened  controversy  as  to  whether  a 
philosopher  means  this  or  that.  Let  us  see  only  how  what 
it  may  be  thought  he  means,  helps  the  truth,  and  suggests 
thought  in  us." 

It  may  be  well  for  me  to  take  this  opportunity  of  giving 
some  account  of  the  remaining  MSS.  left  by  Prof.  Grote.  They 
were  arranged  by  him  in  the  following  groups : 

I.  Four  volumes  containing  about  900  pages.  The  earlier 
part  consists  mainly  of  lectures,  or  notes  for  lectures,  on  Moral 
Philosophy  and  the  Relation  between  Thought  and  Action. 
Among  the  most  important  sections  are  the  chapters  marked 
N  (=  'Noematism'),  containing  about  80  pages  on  the  subject  of 
'  Glossology,'  or  the  changes  in  the  meaning  of  words.  Part  of 
this  has  been  printed  (as  mentioned  above)  in  the  Journal  of 
Philology.  There  is  much  of  interest  also  in  the  section  marked 
S,  containing  60  pages  on  the  classification  of  the  different  kinds 
of  History ;  in  T,  containing  70  pages  on  Practical  Ethics ;  in 
V,  containing  148  pages  on  Ethics  and  Religion;  and  in  Z, 
containing  200  pages  on  Christian  Ethics,  with  discussions  on 
International  Law  and  Casuistry. 

II.  Consists  of  one  volume  of  270  pages,  containing  lectures 
on  Morality,  Society,  Progress,  etc. 

III.  Comprises  three  volumes  of  Essays  and  Reviews,  and 
contains  about  800  pages.  The  most  important  sections  here 
are  263  pages  on  Froude's  History  of  England,  82  pages  on 
Mansel,  30  on  Temple's  Essay,  30  on  Goldwin  Smith,  together 
with  papers  treating  of  Dante  (50  pages),  St  Gregory  on  Job 
(25  pages),  Thomas  Aquinas  (90  pages).  Mill  on  Sedgwick, 
Whewell,  Bentham,  etc.  What  is  now  published  under  the 
title  Examination  of  the  Utilitarian  Philosophy  originally 
formed  Vols.  iv.  and  v.  of  this  group. 

IV.  Comprises  four  volumes  of  about  1200  pages,  bearing 
date  1861.     It  is  made  up  of  Notes,  Essays  and  Lectures,  and 


PREFACE. 


XI 


includes  articles  on  Bentham  (50  pages),  Pascal  (55  pages), 
Channing  (40  pages),  Antoninus  (20),  Charles  Lamb  (18), 
Forster  s  Great  Rebellion  (20),  Comte  and  Buckle  (130),  Plato's 
Oorgias  (30),  Place  of  the  Individual  in  History  (50),  Law  of 
Honour  illustrated  from  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  (20),  etc. 

V.  One  volume  on  Moral  Philosophy,  containing  317  pages, 
(apparently  a  preliminary  sketch  of  Moral  Ideals). 

Series  3\  Two  volumes  of  590  pages  on  Morality  and  the 
History  of  Moral  Philosophy. 

Language.  One  volume  of  422  pages,  part  of  which  has 
been  already  printed  in  the  articles  on  Glossology,  and  in  Good 
Words  under  the  title  '  Thought  versus  Learning.' 

The  Authorized  Version,  tracing  its  changes  up  to  the 
present  time,  138  pages  (used  by  Dr  Scrivener). 

There  are  a  number  of  smaller  parcels  on  various  subjects 
and  a  quantity  of  notes  on  Philology,  on  Architecture,  on 
Ruskin,  etc.,  together  with  note-books  innumerable,  touching 
on  all  conceivable  topics,  from  the  humblest  incidents  of  village 
life  to  the  highest  flights  of  philosophical  or  religious  medi- 
tation :  some  of  these  might  supply  material  for  an  interesting 
collection  of  miscellaneous  Aphorisms.  Probably,  however,  it 
will  be  thought  that  his  latest  ethical  writings  have  the  first 
claim  to  be  printed.  These  are  '  Honestarianism  and  Utili- 
tarianism,' of  217  pages,  finished  June  5,  1866;  'The  two 
lioXiTelaij  of  18  pages,  and  other  shorter  papers  written  in 
the  same  month. 


To  complete  the  general  view  of  Prof.  Grote's  literary  work, 
I  will  add  a  list  of  Pamphlets  and  Essays  printed  before  the 
publication  of  the  First  Part  of  the  Exploratio. 

Commemoration  Sermon  preached  in  Trinity  College  Chapel 
Dec.  15,  1849.     Deighton,  1849. 

^  Series  1  and  2  had  been  incorporated  in  the  preceding  groups  with  an 
altered  title. 


i 


/ 


Xll 


PREFACE. 


Remarks  on  a  Pamphlet  hy  Mr  Shilleto  entitled  '  Thucydides 
or  Orote!    Deighton,  1851. 

A  few  Words  on  Criticism  d  propos  of  the  Saturday  Review, 
Deighton,  1861. 

Examination  of  some  portions  of  Dr  Lushington's  judgment 
in  the  cases  of  the  Bishop  of  Salisbury  v.  Williams,  and  Fendall 
V.  Wilson.     Deighton,  1862. 

Old  Studies  and  New  in  Cambridge  Essays,  1856. 

On  the  Dating  of  Ancient  History  in  Journal  of  Classical 
and  Sacred  Philology,  vol.  i.  pp.  52 — 82.     Camb.  1854. 

On  the  Origin  and  Meaning  of  Roman  Names,  lb.  vol.  ll. 
pp.  257—270.     Camb.  1855. 

A  few  Words  on  the  New  Education  Code.    Deighton,  1862. 

It  only  remains  for  me  to  return  my  warmest  thanks  to 
Prof.  Henry  Sidgwick,  who  has  gone  through  the  proofs  with 
the  utmost  care,  and  whose  advice  throughout  has  been  of  the 
greatest  service  to  me ;  also  to  Mr  H.  W.  B.  Joseph,  to  whom 
the  publication  of  this  volume  is  really  owing,  and  who  has  not 
only  helped  to  revise  the  proofs,  but  has  himself  compiled  the 
Index  ;  lastly  to  the  Syndics  of  the  Cambridge  Univei-sity 
Press,  who  have  shown,  by  their  readiness  to  undertake  the 
expenses  of  publication,  that  the  name  of  John  Grote  is  still 
not  without  honour  in  his  old  University. 

P.S.  The  portrait  of  the  Author  which  forms  the  frontis- 
piece is  a  copy  of  a  photograph  taken  when  he  was  about  50 
years  old. 


CHAP. 

I. 
II. 


III. 

IV. 

V. 

VI. 

VII. 

VIII. 
IX. 
X. 
XL 

XII. 


CONTENTS. 
PART   11. 

BOOK  I. 

THE   author's   views   COMPARED   WITH  THOSE   OF 
OTHER   PHILOSOPHERS. 

PAGE 
Aristotle  as  the  Founder  of  Psychology       .        .        .        .        i 

Later  Noo-psychology,  Consciousness  and  Phenomenalism. 
Meaning  of  Perception.    Mill  and  Stewart     ...        9 

What  is  Knowledge?     How  answered  by  Locke,   Cousin, 

Berkeley,  Descartes 33 

Mill  and  Locke  on  our  Knowledge  of  the  External  World      .       43^"^ 

Hume  on  the  Origin  of  Ideas.     Impression  and  Imagination       50 

Meaning    and  Value  of   Impressions.      Locke  and  Hume 
depreciate  Impression 517 

Comparison  between  Mill  and  Hume  as  to  our  Knowledge  of 

the  External  World Q^jsar 

On  Philosophical  Scepticism 73 

Mr  Herbert  Spencer 91 

Comparative  Psychology.     Morell  and  Spencer   .        .        .104 
Connexion  between  the  Sense  of  Sight  and  our  Conception  of 

the  External  Universe.    Presentment  and  Descrial          .  114 

On  the  Theory  of  Vision       . ny 


BOOK  II. 

IMMEDIATENESS  AND   REFLECTION. 

I.        Self-self  and    Thought-self.      Immediate,  as   distinguished 

from  Reflectional  Thought  and  Action    .        .        .        .145 

II.       Development  of  Knowledge  from  Immediateness.     Intuition 

and  Experience ^52 


xiv  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 
CHAP. 

III.  Development  of  Self-consciousness  from  Immediateness      .  IbO 

IV.  Self-consciousness  and  Perception  in  Conjunction        .        .  172 

V.  Sensibility  and  Activity         .        .        •        •        •        •        •  ^^^ 

VI.  Space  and  Time ^^^ 

VII.  Knowledge  of  Acquaintance  and  Knowledge  of  Judgment .  201 

VIII.  Conception 

BOOK   III. 


I. 

II. 
III. 


I. 

II. 
III. 


I. 

II. 

III. 


WHAT  IS   MATERIALISM? 

Limitations   of  Materialism.     Psychical   Anatomy   cannot 

explain  our  Mental  Experience 231 

Intellectual  and  Moral  Difficulties  of  Materialism       .        .    241 
The  Proverse  and  Retroverse  of  Sensation  .        .        •        .251 

BOOK   IV. 
irdvTcov  fierpov  av6p(OTro<;» 

Discussion  as  to  the  meaning  of  the  Protagorean  Maxim  .     261 
Right  and  Duty  of  Private  Judgment 
Relativity  of  Knowledge,  general  and  particular 


271 

284 


BOOK  V. 

IDEALISM   AND   POSITIVISM. 

Inadequacy  of  the  Positivist  View  of  Truth  and  Life  .  291 
Positivism  as  opposed  to  Rationary  Philosophy  in  regard  to 

Knowledge.    Error  of  Relativism 300 

Positivism  as  opposed  to  Idealism  in  regard  to    Action. 

Error  of  Regulativism ^^^ 

Aphorismi  Finales 

T.                                                                               ...     330 
Epilogue 

Portrait ^^  >^'^  ™' 


CORRIGENDA. 

p.  3,  §  3,  last  word,  for  'this'  read  Hhis^  followed  by  a  colon. 
p.  19,  §  3,  put  in  brackets  'and  may  do  so,  I  suppose,  in  other 

books.' 
p.  27,  §  3,  comma  after  'knowledge.' 
p.  152,  §  1,  1.  4,  insert  'immediate'  before  'thought.' 


The  notes  marked  G  are  by  the  Author,  all  the 
others  by  the  Editor. 


CHAPTER  I. 

ARISTOTLE   AS   THE  FOUNDER   OF   PSYCHOLOGY. 

I  HAVE  spoken  of  the  treatment  of  philosophical  subjects 
from  the  point  of  view  of  Real  Logic \  which  might  also  be 
called  Physical  Logic  or  Applied  Logic,  in  contrast  to  Pure  or 
Formal  Logic.  The  subject  of  this  is  the  study  of  the  actual 
advance  of  man  in  phenomenal  knowledge  with  the  view  of 
drawing  logical  conclusions  from  it :  i.e.  of  understanding  better 
the  action  of  the  human  mind  in  knowing,  and  applying  the 
knowledge  to  good  purpose. 

The  study  of  the  advance  of  human  knowledge  with  the 
view  of  drawing  from  it  conclusions,  not  logical  {i.e.  relating  to 
the  action  of  the  mind,  or  subject  of  knowledge),  but  real,  or 
objective  {i.e,  relating  to  the  constitution  of  the  universe), 
leads  to  a  different  line  of  thought,  to  which  various  names 
might  be  given.  The  former  being  called  Real  or  Physical 
Logic,  this  might  be  called  Real  or  Physical  Epistemology :  it 
is  the  studying  the  nature  of  knowledge  not  in  the  abstract  as 
knowledge  merely,  but  as  mans  knowledge  of  an  actual  universe'. 
and  studying  it,  not  with  a  view  to  conclusions  about  the 
knowledge  only,  but  about  the  universe.  Of  course  the  limits 
between  this  and  the  abstract  science  of  knowledge,  the  science 
of  the  human  mind,  and  real  logic,  are  very  indefinite.  But 
there  is  a  branch  of  literature,  very  important  of  this  kind, 
which  I  will  now  speak  of 

I  have  mentioned  more  than  once  what  I  have  called  '  the 
higher  philosophy  ^'   I  shall  hereafter  speak  of  it  more.    I  mean 


I 


1  Expl.  pp.  153,  171  foil. 


2  Expl.  p.  179. 


M. 


I 


\l^ 


ARISTOTLE  AS  THE 


[chap. 


I.] 


FOUNDER  OF  PSYCHOLOGY. 


3 


I 


by  the  term  what  represents,  so  far  as  anjrthing  represents, 
that  which  is  by  many  called  *  ontology  * :  that  which  treats,  so 
far  as  they  can  be  philosophically  treated,  the  great  principles 
of  morals  and  the  Divine  Nature,  and  which  must  judge  as 
to  the  value  or  non-value  of  such  doctrines  as  the  Platonic 
doctrine  of  ideas,  &c.  The  real  or  physical  epistemology  which 
I  have  spoken  of  covers  in  several  respects  the  same  ground  as 
this  does ;  but  does  not,  as  I  shall  endeavour  to  show,  cover  it 
properly. 

But  there  is  another  region  of  thought  partly  corresponding 
with  this  Real  Epistemology,  and  partly  differing  from  it,  one 
of  the  various  regions  commonly  designated  by  the  very  vague 
word  Psychology. 

Aristotle,  writing  on  philosophical  subjects,  takes  in  his 
Organon  a  purely  logical  view,  a  view,  the  developements  and 
applications  of  which  I  have  in  various  ways  alluded  to.  In  his 
Uepl  ^vyri^  he  takes  a  view  which,  whether  as  taken  by  him 
or  in  various  forms  by  a  great  many  since,  needs  examination 
as  to  the  propriety  and  absence  of  confusion  in  it.  He  calls 
the  view  *  physical'  as  distinguished  from  the  views  in  his 
Organon  and  Metaphysics :  but  by  '  nature '  and  '  physical '  he 
means  hardly  perhaps  the  same  thing  that  we  should  mean. 

Philosophies  of  the  Human  Mind  may  be  considered,  to  a 
certain  degree,  developments  of  Aristotle's  Psychology,  and  are 
often  called  by  that  name.  In  reality,  however,  their  point  of 
view  is  much  more  logical  than  his.  They  start  with,  if  they 
do  not  confine  themselves  to,  the  intellectual  part  of  human 
nature,  and  they  take  very  little  account  indeed  either  of  other 
forms  of  sentient  existence  besides  the  human  (which  is  looked 
at  rather  as  the  type  of  mind  in  general),  or  of  other  parts  of 
the  human  being  besides  the  mind.  The  consequence  is,  that 
the  subject  is  supposed  to  belong  to  philosophy,  not  to  physics 
as  distinct  from  philosophy,  like  the  Aristotelic.  It  is  to  be 
observed,  that  the  making  the  study  belong  to  physics  on  a 
merely  materialistic  view,  which  allows  of  no  such  thing  as 
philosophy,  is  quite  as  un- Aristotelic  a  view  as  the  opposite. 

The  Aristotelic  psychology  is  really  the  Comparative  Science 
of  Life  in  the  widest  possible  sense  of  the  word  Life,  of  which 


therefore  the  science  of  the  Human  Mind,  or  of  man's  particular 
conscious  life,  constitutes  a  very  small  portion.  I  avoid  using 
the  word  'sour  on  purpose,  because  the  endless  confused 
controversy  about  it  has  rendered  it,  like  many  other  words 
unfit  for  use  as  a  philosophical  term,  unless  with  constant 
accompanying  definition. 

Psychology  is  therefore  most  simply  viewed  a^  the  study 
of  all  the  nature,  and  all  the  fa<5ts,  of  sentient  and  active 
being:  and  Comparative  Psychology  is  the  study  of  these,  as 
they  are  manifested  in  different  beings. 

I  said  that  what  I  called  above  Real  Epistemology,  or  in 
other  words,  the  science  of  Human  knowledge,  occupies  in  part 
the  same  region  with  Psychology.     I  mean  tjiis: 

In  our  theorizing  about  knowledge  as  Human,  one  great 
point  of  necessity  to  be  considered  about  it  is,  that  man,  the 
knowmg  subject,  stands  at  one  point  in  a  chain  of  gradation  of 
different  kinds  of  knowledge,  all  animals,  from  the  highest  to 
the  lowest,  possessing  their  special  manner  of  knowing. 

Closely  corresponding  with  this  fact  is  another,  viz.  that 
man  s  knowledge  is  only  one  part  of  his  conscious  life,  and  in 
intimate  relation  with  the  other  parts,  just  as  such  knowledge 
m  other  animals  is  in  unison  with  their  life.  The  whole 
science  then  of  Comparative  Psychology  comes  into  intimate 
relation  with  Real  Epistemology. 

But  again,  beginning  from  the  other  side:  Psychology 
altogether,  and  especially  Comparative  Psychology,  cannot 
really  exist  without  the  con-esponding  study  of  the  universe 
m  which  life  has  existence,  and  to  the  particulars  of  which  all 
the  particulars  of  life  itself  have  relation.  The  study  of  the  cir- 
cumstances and  environment  of  life  is  indispensable  to  the 
study  of  life  itself  The  whole  universe  and  the  living  part  of 
It  belong  to  each  other,  and  form— what,  in  Dr  Whewell's 
language,  might  be  called-a  great  antithesisS  the  study  of  the 
one  involving  the  study  of  the  other. 

In   Human   Epistemology,  the  antithesis  between  subject 
and  object  of  knowledge  is  a  portion  of  this  greater  antithesis 


Expl.  ch.  xi. 


1—2 


11 


ARISTOTLE   AS  THE 


[chap. 


The  universe  fits  our  faculties  of  knowledge  in  the  same  way  as 
the  air  fits  our  lungs,  or  the  light  our  eyes.  The  real  subject- 
matter  of  knowledge  is  the  relation  between  these  two,  not 
either  of  them  without  the  other:  and  this  relation  is  looked 
at  not  d  priori,  as  in  abstract  epistemology,  but  in  the  manner 
in  whiqb  the  continued  advance  of  knowledge  and  experience 
presents  it  to  us  ever  more  and  more  perfectly. 

Psychology  thus,  here  again,  comes  to  coincide  with  the 
concrete  study  of  human  knowledge. 

In  one  point  of  view,  the  two  may  come  to  coincide  in  a 
higher  region  still.  Aristotle  must  be  considered  as  virtually 
saying,  that  what  gives  to  living  things  their  reality,  what 
constitutes,  in  other  words,  the  thing  which  is  known  or 
understood  about  them,  when  we  talk  of  knowing  them,  is  the 
life.  Livingness,  where  it  exists,  is  in  this  way  the  subjective 
and  objective  in  one;  it  is  * knowingness '  and  ' knowableuess ' 
in  the  particular  thing,  identical ;  existence  in  its  character  of 
what  thinks,  and  existence  in  its  character  of  what  may  be 
thought  of,  in  one.  Hence  a  wide  region  of  speculation,  belong- 
ing, according  to  the  view  taken,  either  to  psychology  or  to  real 
epistemology.  Is  this  completeness  the  type  of  being,  and  is 
unity  or  reality  without  it  a  case  where  something  is  abortive  ? 
Or  are  the  two  notions  of  existence  radically  different  and  the 
particular  identification  only  occasional  or  accidental  ?  Or 
what  otherwise  is  the  relation  of  the  two  forms  ?  Speculations 
of  this  kind  may  be  said  to  constitute  Psychology  or  Real 
Epistemology  in  their  most  abstract  character. 

On  the  other  hand  Human  knowledge  may  be  looked  at 
from  a  merely  phenomenalist  point  of  view,  as  a  portion  of  the 
relation  between  one  of  the  organized  beings  of  the  universe, 
man,  and  his  environment  or  circumstances.  In  this  case  the 
distinctive  character  of  the  study,  as  the  science  of  knowledge, 
pretty  much  vanishes,  and  merges  into  a  wider  psychology, 
treating  of  the  relation  of  the  different  organized  beings  of  the 
universe  to  the  universe  in  which  they  are. 

Aristotle  treated  Psychology,  or  wrote  of  the  saul,  so  to 
call  it  for  a  moment,  as  a  part  of  physics.  That  is,  he  started,  in 
discussing  sensation,  feeling,  and  thought,  with  a  definite  and 


I] 


FOUNDER  OF  PSYCHOLOGY. 


clear  view  of  that  kind  which  I  call  phenomenalist.  His  '  soul ' 
is  life, '  livingness,'  the  living  principle,  as  we  see  it  exhibited  in 
the  spatial  universe  (assumed  in  this  case  fitly  as  groundwork), 
and  again  in  its  various  forms  and  degrees,  in  plants,  animals, 
and  man.  He  tries  to  get  as  deep  as  he  can,  so  to 
call  it,  into  mind  this  way.  I  am  not  going  to  examine  his 
treatise :  what  I  shall  say  about  it  for  my  present  purpose  is 
this :  first,  what  is  almost  superfluous  to  say  of  any  work  of 
Aristotle's,  that  it  is  full  of  energy  of  thought,  suggesting 
and  opening  views  in  every  direction,  and  scattering  seeds  of 
after  speculation :  next,  that  it  is  full  of  what  I  have  called 
*notionalism^'  or  the  realizing  of  logical  notions:  third,  that 
it  confuses  the  phenomenalist  and  philosophical  views  in  two 
manners,  which  I  will  notice,  but  to  a  less  degree  than  much  of 
later  psychology. 

About  the  *  notionalism '  I  shall  say  little,  for  it  is  the  trite 
and  ordinary  charge  against  Aristotelianism.  I  mean  by  it 
this.  The  treatise  is  one  of  physics,  but  it  is  Aristotelian 
physics.  That  is,  the  investigation  is  about  the  being  or  essence 
of  the  soul  or  livingness,  with  full  account  of  what  speculators 
had  thought  it  to  be,  and  much  besides  of  like  nature ;  and  all 
this  in  association  with  the  Aristotelian  physical  views  about 
motion,  action,  and  passion,  which  give  to  Aristotle's  philosophy 
a  very  different  character  from  what  I  have  called  phenome- 
nalism. I  am  half  ashamed  to  blame  Aristotle's  notionalism, 
because  to  me,  just  in  virtue  of  its  thoroughness,  it  seems  better 
than  the  later  notionalism,  much  of  which  is  full  of  contempt 
for  his,  and  is  even  perhaps  introduced  in  supposed  remedy  of 
his.  For  instance,  in  relation  to  his  investigation  of  the  being 
or  essence  of  the  soul  or  livingness,  what  will  be  said  by  many 
is  that  this  is  foolish,  since  being  or  essence  is  unknowable, 
and  we  can  only  find  out  qualities  and  phenomena.  This  seems 
to  me  a  worse  notionalism  than  his.  No  doubt  there  is  in  him 
a  confusion  between  the  philosophical  and  phenomenalist  views. 
To  assume  the  existence  of  something,  which  you  cannot 
describe,  and  of  which  each  philosopher,  as  you  show,  has  a 

1  Expl.  pp.  73,  150. 


e 


ARISTOTLE  AS  THE 


[chap. 


I.] 


FOUNDER  OF   PSYCHOLOGY. 


I 


dififerent  notion,  is  really  a  matter  of  logic:  the  assumed 
existence  is  not  something  unknown,  but  is  only  a  logical  peg 
on  which  to  hang  a  certain  number  of  things  which  you  do  know 
and  can  observe.  Go  through  then  with  these :  and  Aristotle 
does  so  most  admirably :  he  gives  us  the  various  phenomena  of 

*  livingness '  in  plants,  animals,  man,  with  a  vigour  most  wonder- 
ful, considering  how  little  could  then  have  been  comparatively 
observed.  All  these  phenomena  are  realities:  i.e.  as  real  as 
anything  can  be,  of  which  at  the  last  it  has  to  be  said,  I  think 
this  is  so,  their  reality  depending  upon  whether  I  am  right  in 
thinking  so.  Do  we  get  then  to  anything  beyond  such  phe- 
nomenal reality?  It  is  probable  that  then,  as  now,  great 
importance  was  attached  to  the  supposition  of  the  existence 
of  this  livingness,  or  soul,  in  the  way  of  a  basis  for  these 
phenomena.  This  is  what  I  do  not  understand :  the  phenomena 
want  no  basis  of  this  kind,  and  if  we  try  to  give  one,  we  really 
make  it  of  the  same  kind  as  they,  and  come  only  to  what  I 
should  call  a  very  refined  materialism.  Aristotle  says,  *the 
soul  thinks,  the  soul  feels,  the  soul  acts,'  when  I  should  say, 

*  I  think,  I  feel,  I  act :  and  when  I  say,  as  above,  that  there  is 
confusion  of  views,  I  mean  this :  that  thus  we  are  vainly  trying 
to  go  beyond  phenomenalism  along  the  way  of  phenomenalism, 
instead  of  altogether  changing  our  point  of  view  to  that  of 
consciousness.  If  we  say,  the  body  feels,  the  eye  sees,  the  hand 
handles,  what  we  mean  is  something  phenomenal,  that  the  parts 
of  the  body  are  in  a  certain  state,  determined  by,  or  related 
to,  the  state  of  things  outside  it.  If  we  say,  the  soul  feels  or 
thinks,  we  really  mean  either  to  phenomenalize  the  soul,  and 
to  assert  something  the  same  as  to  that,  or  we  mean  to  change 
our  point  of  view  altogether  and  to  say,  /  feel ;  and  when  we 
say  this,  for  all  that  we  know,  everything  else  vanishes.  *I 
feel '  may  be  the  only  fact  of  all  that  we  suppose ;  for  that 
there  is  such  a  thing  as  body  or  universe,  is  all  a  part  of  the 
feeling.  Only,  if  *  I  feel '  is  a  fact,  *  I '  w,  and  we  are  ourselves 
existent  with  an  existence  higher  than  phenomenal. 

To  a  certain  degree  then  there  seems  to  me  confusion  of 
view  in  Aristotle's  notionalism,  as  there  is  likely  to  be  in  most. 
But  besides   this,  his  view   of   sensation  could   not   but   be 


imperfect  considering  the  imperfect  physical  knowledge  of  his 
time :  the  wonder  is,  not  its  imperfection,  but  that,  with  all  the 
advance  in  physical  knowledge,  it  was  so  long  before  it  was 
improved  upon. 

I  described  two  ways  of  his  confusion,  and  I  meant  them 
in  regard  to  v6rj<rc<i  or  thought,  and  ata-drja-c^  or  sense :  but  I 
will  treat  them  together. 

With  real  deference  to  the  opinion  of  any  who  have  more 
knowledge  of  Aristotle's  physics  than  I  have,  and  have  given 
more  special  attention  to  this  treatise, — keeping  in  mind  also 
"the  very  defective  physical  knowledge  of  Aristotle's  time, 
knowledge,  that  is,  of  the  actual  facts  of  the  communication 
between  brain  and  nerve  on  the  one  side,  and  natural  agents  on 
the  other — I  am  inclined  to  think  that  Aristotle  took  more 
clear  hold  of  the  distinction  I  am  trying  to  draw,  than  most 
psychologists  since.  His  medium,  the  to  /icrafu^  seems  to  me 
to  represent  the  physical  communication:  his  transmission  of 
the  aiaOrjra  eXhrj^y  (the  sensible  species)  from  the  object  to  the 
soul,  the  T07ro9  elBcov^,  seems  to  me  to  represent  (what  I  have 
called)  the  communication  between  mind  on  the  one  side  and 
reason  or  meaning  in  things  on  the  other,  i.e.  the  comprehension, 
conception,  or  forming  a  notion  of  them.  I  do  not  say  this 
because  I  have  any  particular  care  to  make  Aristotle  think  the 
same  as  I  do :  and  I  am  quite  aware  of  the  manner  in  which, 
since  Aristotle,  these  two  notions  of  his  have  been  treated.  But 
so  far  as  the  alaUrjrd  clSij  represent  anything  even  in  any  way 
physical,  passing  between  the  object  and  the  sense,  I  do  not 
see  how  they  will  agree  with  the  to  fiera^v:  1  cannot  understand 
the  consistency  of  the  two  intermediations — unless  indeed  one 
is  wanted  for  primary  qualities,  the  other  for  secondary.  But 
I  do  not  at  all  want  to  enter  into  the  Aristotelian  theory  of 
perception.  I  shall  perhaps,  in  commenting  on  later  views  of 
perception,  slightly  refer  back  to  it. 

His  notion  of  the  distinction  between  *  common  and  proper 
sensibles* '  or  qualities,  as  those  with  which  we  communicate  on 
the  one  hand  by  means  of  the  whole  organization,  and  on  the 


^  Uepl  "irvxv^  II.  11,  cf.  Bonitz  Index,  s.v. 
2  l.c,  U.  12.  8  l.c.  III.  4.  4. 


*  U.  n.  6. 


33: 


M 


4 


8  ARISTOTLE   AS  THE   FOUNDER  OF  PSYCHOLOGY.      [CHAP.  I. 

other  by  means  of  special  instruments  for  the  purpose,  seems  to 
me  a  truth  of  sensation  for  all  time,  and  to  be  far  superior  to 
all  later  discussions  on  the  difference  between  primary  and 
secondary  qualities. 

While  however  it  appears  to  me  thus  that  the  notions  of  the 
TO  fiera^if  and  the  etSrj  are  genuine  efiforts  after  the  truth,  it 
may  perhaps  be  doubted  whether  Aristotle's  own  view  was 
definite.  *The  sense  receives  the  sensible  forms  without  the 
matter,  as  the  wax  receives  the  imprint^' — it  is  difficult  to  say 
how  far  this  is  to  be  regarded  as  mere  metaphor  or  illustration. 
Again:  Aristotle  apparently  approves  the  calling  of  the  soul 
T07ro9  €i8a>v,  saying  however  that  it  is  the  soul  intelligent  or 
thinking  that  is  this,  as  distinct  from  the  soul  sensitive^  I 
praise  the  application  here  of  the  word  TOTrofs^  where  a  something 
thinking  is  mentioned,  for  it  does  not  seem  to  me  that  Aristotle 
meant  anything  spatial,  and  if  we  could  form  the  notion  of  a 
ToVo?  or  '  continent  ^'  what  anything  could  be  m,  other  than 
space,  it  would  be  very  convenient,  and  would  save  much 
mistake  as  to  *  outward'  or  *  external/  However,  Aristotle's 
notion  of  the  several  functions,  as  above,  of  the  sensitive  and 
thinking  soul  is  hard  to  get,  and  it  may  perhaps  be  questioned, 
as  I  said,  whether  it  is  definite. 

Beginning  with  a  clear  phenomenalist  view,  Aristotle  does 
not  say  much  about  the  thinking  soul  till  after  discussing  the 
sensitive,  and  this  is  one  reason  why  there  is  less  confusion,  it 
seems  to  me,  in  him,  than  in  later  psychology.  For  when  we 
do  come  to  that,  we  get  into  the  difficulty.  'H  yfrvxri  rd  ovra 
7rm  i(TTi  7rdvTa\  That  is  what  I  say.  The  thinking .  soul, 
when  you  come  to  that,  absorbs  everything  else.  When,  in 
discussing  the  universe,  you  come  to  a  knowing  part  of  it,  and 
begin  to  discuss  knowledge,  you  find  you  have  got  round  to  the 
beginning  again,  or  rather  to  a  point  before  the  beginning— 
for  all  existence  depends  to  us  upon  our  knowledge  of  it— and 
you  discover  yourself  building  the  foundation  high  up  upon 
the  roof  Here  Aristotle,  otherwise  true  in  the  main  to  his 
present  investigation  as  physical,  comes  really  to  philosophy, 
and  wiser  than  many,  does  not,  out  of  place,  enter  upon  this. 
Still  even  the  mention  of  it  puzzles. 


i 


I 


V 


\ 


CHAPTER  II. 

LATER  NOO-PSYCHOLOGY,  CONSCIOUSNESS  AND  PHENO- 
MENALISM. MEANING  OF  PERCEPTION.  MILL  AND 
STEWART. 

So  much  now  about  Aristotle.  I  will  proceed  to  remark  a 
little  upon  the  later  '  noo-psychology^'  if  one  may  call  it  so, 
as  distinct  from  the  simply  phenomenalist  science  of  physio- 
psychology. 

I  will  say  first  that  the  word  which  lends  itself  more  than 
any  other  to  the  confusion  which  I  have  continually  spoken  of 
is  the  word  'perception,'  which  is  the  reason  why,  as  may 
perhaps  have  been  observed,  I  make  little  use  of  it.  Lest, 
however,  it  should  be  supposed  that  this  is  because  I  am 
afraid  of  it,  and  that  the  use  of  it  really  involves  a  truth,  we 
will  a  little  examine  it. 

I  'perceive'  a  thing,  in  the  simplest  signification  of  the 
word,  means  in  my  view  no  less  than  this  :  I  conceive  (or  have 
the  notion  of)  my  body  or,  as  I  should  call  it,  myself  pheno- 
menally filling  space  in  a  spatial  universe,  and  something  filling 
space  also  in  communication^  with  it  (whatever  the  communi- 
cation may  be);  along  with  the  further  thought,  that  I  am 
right  in  having  the  notion  of  this  communication,  or,  in  other 
words,  that  this  something  exists  in  the  same  manner  in  which 
my  body  does.  This  latter  is  what  distinguishes  perception, 
to  the  perceiver,  from  simple  conception  or  imagination.  Still, 
it  is  not,  necessarily,  perception,  unless  it  can  be  said  (with 
a  knowledge  independent  of  the  perception).  There  is  a  stone ; 


1  Expl.  pp.  73, 151. 


2  Expl.  p.  7. 


1  U.  12. 


2  III.  4.  4. 


3  Expl.  p.  10. 


*  III.  p.  8. 


I 


10 


LATER  NOO-PSYCHOLOGY, 


[chap. 


for,  if  there  is  not  a  stone  to  be  perceived,  the  perception 
is  only  supposition  of  perception. 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  existence  of  anything  which  we 
suppose  we  perceive  is  here  referred  to  our  body :  when  we  say 
a  thing  is  (what  I  call)  phenomenally,  we  mean,  that  it  does, 
or  can,  communicate  with  our  corporeal  frame.  The  notion 
of  rightness  as  it  accompanies  the  notion  of  phenomenalism 
altogether,— our  body,  universe,  and  all— I  have  discussed 
ah-eady^  On  that  depends  the  difference  between  perception 
altogether  and  imagination,  or  a  sort  of  imagination.  On  the 
rightness  of  the  supposition  that  the  thing  communicates  with 
our  body,  depends  the  distinction  of  the  particular  perception 
from  imagination. 

I  said  that  this  is  the  simplest  notion  of  perception :  this 
is  what  we  mean  when  we  say  I  perceive  '  something.'  If  we 
say,  *  I  perceive  a  stone ' — the  more  proper  application  of  the 
term — we  add  a  fresh  intellectual  element  to  the  process,  i.e. 
there  is  reference  to  previous  knowledge,  and  recognition  or 
identification.  There  is  then  not  only  the  notion  of  the  thing, 
as  spatial,  being  in  communication  with  our  body,  but  there  is 
the  notion  of  something  about  the  spatial  thing,  of  the  thing  as 
constituted,  as  generic,  as  serving  a  purpose,  &c.,  communicat- 
ing with  our  thought.  This  is  the  principle,  as  I  have  before 
described^  of  notice,  recognition,  identification:  and  is  the 
truest  *thinghood,'  the  most  essential  quality  of  the  thing. 

It  will  be  seen  then  that  when  we  talk  about  perception, 
we  proceed,  if  we  are  consistent,  outward  and  divergingly  from 
the  body  to  the  universe— supposing,  that  is,  ultimately  or  at 
the  limit,  something  common  between  space  and  *  mindhood ' — 
not  inwardly  and  convergingly  from  the  universe  to  the  body 
and  so  to  the  mind,  so  far  as  there  is  meaning  in  doing  this 
latter.  This  latter  is  the  way  in  which  we  proceed  in  ex- 
amining the  corporeal  communication:  a  great  part  of  the 
language  of  physio-psychology  will,  therefore,  naturally  and 
rightly  go  upon  it:  but  unfortunately  a  great  deal  of  the 
language  of  noo-psychology  will,  by  a  wrong  analogy,  go  upon 
it  also. 

1  Expl.  p.  13.  ^  Expl.  pp.  37,  45. 


■ 


<^ 


II.] 


CONSCIOUSNESS  AND   PHENOMENALISM. 


11 


The  '  basal  *  fact,  or  fact  of  facts,  as  I  have  described  it^  is 
variety  of  consciousness  (or,  in  other  words,  a  succession  of 
various  feelings)  bound  all  together  by  the  '  I-hood '  or  feeling 
of  personality.  This  fact  developes  itself  into  others,  or  is  ex- 
hibitable,  on  certain  suppositions,  in  relation  with  others.  If 
we  examine  the  development,  or  look  at  the  fact  without  special 
supposition,  completely,  we  are  following  out  the  course  of 
thought  or  knowledge :  and  the  study  of  perception,  perception 
being  supposed  an  action  of  the  mind,  must  be  in  this  way. 
On  this  view,  the  distinctive  character  of  our  consciousness,  as 
reasonable  beings,  is,  correspondently  with  the  variety  of  our 
feeling,  to  conceive  ourselves,  in  the  way  I  have  just  described, 
as  corporeal  and  forming  part,  as  such,  of  a  spatial  universe,  in 
communication  with  different  portions  of  it,  and  to  suppose,  as 
I  have  said  besides,  that  we  are  right  in  conceiving  thus. 

It  is  this  conception  with  the  feeling  of  rightness  attached 
to  it,  which  makes  what  we  call '  consciousness ' :  and  when  we 
conceive  consciousness  as  different  from  imagination,  we  give 
significance  to  this  notion  of  rightness  in  it. 

Our  thought  and  the  thought  of  a  state  of  things  in  relation 
to  us  (I  would  say  a  state  of  things  we  are  in,  if  *  in '  could  be 
understood  without  necessary  relation  to  space)  seem  to  me 
indistinguishable.  Our  notion  of  existence  and  reality,  or, 
which  is  the  same  thing,  our  notion  of  the  rightness  attaching 
to  the  conception,  which  we  then  call  our  consciousness,  seems 
to  me  in  substance  a  ti^ustf  which  we  may  equally  describe  as  a 
trust  in  our  thought  or  a  trust  in  things :  for  I  look  upon  the 
two  as  two  sides  of  what  is  the  same,  only  that  thought  is  the 
side  towards  us.  The  reason  why  what  we  trust  is  to  us  (at 
the  furthest  point  to  which  we  can  follow  it  back)  our  thought, 
not  thingSj  is  because  we  cannot  escape  from  the  position  of 
thinking:  that  position  is  necessarily  the  last  that  we  get  to: 
we  cannot  realize  fact  unthought,  and  cannot  say  we  trust  to 
fact  as  against  thought,  or  as  testing  the  rightness  of  thought, 
when  after  all  it  is  only  fact  as  thought  that  we  trust  to.  But 
the  trusting  to  thought  is  the  trusting  to  things  as  correspond- 
ing with  it. 

1  Expl.  pp.  23,  47,  57. 


12 


LATER  NOO-PSYCHOLOGY, 


[chap. 


II.] 


CONSCIOUSNESS   AND   PHENOMENALISM. 


13 


Taking  the  investigation  not  quite  so  deep,  going  only  to 
the  basement  of  knowledge  and  not  to  the  actual  hidden 
foundation,  we  have  the  phenomenalist  view,  the  'cosmocentric^' 
instead  of  the  '  autocentrie '  or  '  nucentric '  one.  Here  we  begin 
with  the  supposition  of  the  spatial  universe  existing,  and 
ourselves  with  our  bodies,  and  things  existing  in  it.  On  this 
view,  the  basal  fact^,  consciousness,  is  to  be  considered  not 
developed,  as  before,  but  as  contemporaneous  with  a  phenomenal 
fact,  viz.  what  I  have  called  bodily  communication  with  things, 
the  fact  of  our  nerves  being  in  a  particular  state  on  the 
occasion  of  their  presence  in  various  ways.  These  two  facts  are 
constantly  both  called  by  the  name  of  sensation.  Mr  Mill,  we 
have  seen,  distinguishes  them  with  great  care^  though,  I  think, 
scarcely  able  himself  to  be  faithful  to  the  distinction.  Of 
philosophers  of  the  last  century,  some  may  be  said  to  have 
maintained  the  distinction  universally :  some  to  have  main- 
tained it  in  regard  of  soTne  sensations,  but  not  in  regard  of  all : 
some  to  have  entirely  neglected  it. 

The  ultra-Lockian,  sensationalist,  or  sensualist  philosophy  of 
the  last  century  takes,  I  think,  no  notice  of  the  distinction,  and 
in  this  it  is  followed  by  various  philosophies  of  a  different  kind 
which  adopt  its  language.  The  sensations  or  impressions, 
which  are  spoken  of  as  the  beginnings  or  constituents  of 
knowledge,  are  treated  as  each  one  a  particular  consciousness 
and  a  particular  bodily  state  in  conjunction,  without  further 
attention  to  them  in  this  vfB,y. 

*  Noo-psychology,'  or  the  Lockian  psychology,  is  something 
which,  when  I  look  at  it,  always  fills  me  with  a  mingled 
admiration  and  bewilderment.  It  is  a  subject  which  has 
absorbed  a  vast  amount  of  ingenuity  and  power  of  mind,  and 
each  philosopher  struggles  hard  to  set  the  confusion  right, 
and  as  Stewart  says  of  Reid,  'to  strike  at  the  root  of  the 
common  theories  on  the  subject,*  and  remove  the  perplexity. 
Unfortunately  it  has  a  terrible  tendency  to  begin  again.  I  do 
not  know  of  any  subject  in  which  there  seems  to  have  been 
more  of  what  I  should  call  intellectual  conscientiousness,  that 
is,  honest   effort  to  face  the  difficulty,  than  in  this:   and   I 

1  Expl.  p.  11.  ^  Expl  p.  70.  «  Expl.  pp.  162,  192. 


,( 


I 


think  the  point  which  is  wrong  seems  to  have  been  abundantly 

well  seen,  but  we  cannot  get  hold  of  it,  and  in  spite  of  the 

reforms,  noo-psychology  has  gone  on  increasing  in  intricacy. 

My  own  view,  as  I  have  said,  is  that  it  is  two  subjects  involved 

together,  in  regard  of  which  our  thoughts  will  never  be  clear 

till  we  distinctly  separate  them.     I  think  I  cannot  do  better 

than  quote   a  long  passage  from  Stewart's  Elements  of  the 

Philosophy  of  the  Human  Mindly  eminently  characterized  by 

the  real  effort  after  truth  which  I  have  spoken  of,  exhibiting 

the   nature   of  what   I   have  called  the  continued  reform  of 

noo-psychology,  Avith  its  little  result  for  good,  and  which  I 

think    will   illustrate   the   difference   between   my  manner  of 

thinking  and  that   of  these   psychologists.     The   'difficulty' 

spoken  of  at  the  beginning  is  that  of  '  the  intercourse  between 

mind  and  matter,'  and  *  the  influence  of  the  will  over  the  body.* 

Singular  as  it  may  appear,  Dr  Keid  was  the  first  person  who  had 
courage  to  lay  completely  aside  all  the  common  hypothetical  language 
concerning  perception,  and  to  exhibit  the  difficulty  in  all  its  magnitude  by 
a  plain  statement  of  the  fact.  To  what,  then,  it  may  be  asked,  does  this 
statement  amount  ?  Merely  to  this,  that  the  mind  is  so  formed  that 
certain  impressions  produced  on  our  organs  of  sense  by  external  objects, 
are  followed  by  correspondent  sensations,  and  that  these  sensations  (which 
have  no  more  resemblance  to  the  qualities  of  matter  than  the  words  of  a 
language  have  to  the  things  they  denote)  are  followed  by  a  perception  of 
the  existence  and  qualities  of  the  bodies  by  which  the  impressions  are 
made ;  that  all  the  steps  of  this  process  are  equally  incomprehensible ; 
and  that,  for  anything  we  can  prove  to  the  contrary,  the  connexion 
between  the  sensation  and  the  perception,  as  well  as  that  between  the 
impression  and  the  sensation,  may  be  both  arbitrary  ;  that  it  is  therefore 
by  no  means  impossible  that  our  sensations  may  be  merely  the  occasions 
on  which  the  correspondent  perceptions  are  excited  ;  and  that,  at  any  rate, 
the  consideration  of  these  sensations,  which  are  attributes  of  mind,  can 
throw  no  light  on  the  manner  in  which  we  acquire  oiu"  knowledge  of  the 
existence  and  qualities  of  body.  From  this  view  of  the  subject  it  follows, 
that  it  is  the  external  objects  themselves,  and  not  any  species  or  images 
of  these  objects,  that  the  mind  perceives ;  and  that,  although  by  the 
constitution  of  our  nature  certain  sensations  are  rendered  the  constant 
antecedents  of  our  perceptions,  yet  it  is  just  as  difficult  to  explain  how  our 
perceptions  are  obtained  by  their  means,  as  it  would  be  upon  the  suppo- 
sition that  the  mind  were  all  at  once  inspired  with  them,  without  any 
concomitant  sensations  whatever. 

*  Works,  vol.  II.  p.  Ill,  Hamilton's  ed. 


14 


MEANING  OF  PERCEPTION. 


[chap. 


II.] 


MILL  AND  STEWART. 


16 


On  this  passage  I  will  make  a  succession  of  remarks. 

1.  The  fallacy  running  through  the  whole  of  noo-psy- 
chology  is  this.  We  begin  with  saying  'Certain  impressions 
are  produced  on  our  organs  of  sense  by  external  objects/  and 
we  go  on  to  say  that  then,  after  perhaps  something  else  also 
has  taken  place,  we  get  'a  perception  of  the  existence  and 
qualities  of  the  objects  by  which  the  sensations  are  made.' 
Now,  supposing  the  impression  and  the  perception  different 
and  successive,  as  they  are  here  described,  how  can  we  possibly 
know  that  what  we  perceive  is  '  the  existence  and  qualities  of 
the  objects  by  which  the  impressions  are  made  V  In  the  first 
line  we  have  got  so  far  as  this :  the  objects  exist,  though  not 
as  yet  for  us :  other  people  perceive  them  probably,  though  we 
know  nothing  about  them  :  next,  they  make  impressions  on  our 
organs  of  sense :  it  is  difficult  to  say  who  knows  this,  (for  we  as 
yet  do  not  know  their  existence),  but  we  will  accept  this  account 
of  the  fact,  which  any  physical  philosopher  looking  on  would 
know  took  place,  if  he  saw  an  eye  directed  towards  an  object, 
viz.  that  light  passed  in  various  ways  between  them.  Then, 
after  something  else  which  just  now  I  need  not  notice,  comes 
the  perception — we  perceive  the  existence  of  the  object  by 
which  the  impressions  were  made.  Now  what  human  being 
can  know  that  the  object,  the  existence  of  which  we  perceive, 
is  the  same  as  the  object  which  made  the  impressions  ?  Not 
we  ourselves ;  for  if  we  had  known,  in  receiving  the  impressions, 
that  it  was  the  object  made  them,  we  should  have  known  the 
existence  of  the  object,  before  we  are  represented  as  having 
got  the  perception  of  it.  Not  the  spectator;  for  he  knows 
indeed,  perhaps,  what  object  it  must  have  been  which  made 
the  impressions  on  us,  seeing,  for  instance,  where  our  eye  is 
directed :  but  what  object  it  is  which  we  perceive  the  existence 
of,  is  a  matter  which  he  cannot  possibly  know,  being  simply  a 
matter  of  our  consciousness.     Nobody  then  can  know  it^ 

^  That  is,  no  one  single  person :  for  we  might  suppose  (I  put  it  in  this  way 
as  it  may  help  some  persons  to  see  what  it  is  that  is  wrong)  a  conversation 
between  the  perceiver  and  the  physiologist  who  stands  by  looking  at  him.  The 
former  might  say :  I  imagine  or  conceive  a  great  green  thing  with  leaves — a  tree 
in  fact.    The  latter  might  say  to  him :  Do  not  say  you  imagine  or  conceive  such 


This  is  no  vain  subtlety,  but  is  what,  if  people  would  have 
considered  it,  might  have  saved  worlds  of  writing.  I  have  only 
here  put  into  another  form  what  I  said  in  reference  to 
a  sentence  of  Mr  Mill's  involving  the  same  confusion^;  we  have 
a  thing  which  may  equally  well  be  described  in  either  of  two 
ways.  The  object  which  makes  impressions  is  the  same  as  the 
object  the  existence  and  qualities  of  which  are  perceived,  for 
the  simple  reason  that  its  producing  impressions  followed  by 
a  sensation  is  the  same  thing,  if  we  look  in  one  direction,  as  our 
perceiving  its  existence  and  qualities,  if  we  look  in  the  other. 

a  thing  :  you  see  or  perceive  it,  for  there  is  a  tree  right  in  front  of  your  eyes  and 
your  eyes  are  open,  and  I  know  by  my  science  that,  when  a  tree,  e.g.  and  an  eye 
are  in  that  relative  position,  light  travels  from  the  former  to  the  latter,  and  there 
take  place  in  the  latter  a  variety  of  processes  as  to  the  light  and  the  nerve, 
which  I  have  studied  carefully,  and  never  could  tell  what  they  were  for.  I  now 
see  they  must  have  something  to  do  with  that  feeling  which  you  describe  as 
conception  of  a  thing— but  then  I  suppose  you  sometimes  have  that  feeling 
without  your  eyes  being  open  and  the  thing  in  front  of  you  :  if  so,  you  ought  to 
have  two  words,  and  perhaps  it  would  be  as  well  if  you  called  the  feeling  in  the 
one  case  imagination,  in  the  other  perception  :  only  then  again  there  is  this 
misfortune,  that  you  want  me  to  tell  you  whether  your  feeling  is  imagination  or 
perception,  i.e.  whether  the  thing  is  in  front  of  you  or  not.  You  might,  to  be 
sure,  tell  that,  in  the  case  of  the  tree,  by  your  legs  and  hands,  by  going  and 
feeling,  but  then  we  cannot  carry  that  out,  for  you  want  somebody  to  tell  you, 
in  the  last  resort,  whether  you  have  got  legs  and  hands,  or  whether  that  is  not 
all  imagination. 

Of  course  for  the  physiologist  to  say  this,  he  must  be  possessed  of  that 
power  of  momentary  forgetfulness  which  is  an  incalculable  advantage  for 
philosophical  imagination  and  abstraction.  He  must  forget  all  his  conscious 
knowledge,  and  be  the  physiologist  only.  He  must  possess  knowledge  without 
knowing  what  knowledge  is,  so  that  he  wonders  at  it  and  is  able  freely  to  study 
it  when  he  finds  it.  We  must  suppose  that  it  has  never  struck  his  mind  that 
he  possesses,  as  parent  of  his  knowledge,  the  feeling  himself,  which  he  is  here 
wondering  at  in  another.  It  is  evident  that  this  requires  a  good  deal  of 
imagination,  and  that  it  does  so,  the  noo-psychologists  have  very  little  under- 
stood. They  suppose  us  with  our  clothes  or  environment  of  the  external 
universe  already  on,  and  then  proceed  to  put  them  on. 

If  the  perceiver  depends  on  himself  alone,  and  has  not  the  physiologist  by 
his  side  to  tell  him  when  his  conception  is  accompanied  by  impression  or 
presence  of  the  thing,  he  must  have  some  means  of  determining  in  himself 
whether  his  conception  is  imagination  or  perception— in  fact,  more  than  this,  of 
determining  whether  the  distinction  which  he  makes  between  perception  and 
imagination  is  itself  other  than  delusion.  This  is  the  question  of  scepticism  or 
reality  of  knowledge.  — G. 

1  Expl  p.  193. 


■  JM.    tMXI  a- J- 


16 


MEANING   OF   PERCEPTION. 


[chap. 


XL] 


MILL  AND  STEWART. 


17 


These  two  ways  of  considering  the  matter  will  be  recognized 
as  the  two  views  which  I  have  all  along  urged  should  be  kept 
separate :  the  view  from  consciousness  and  the  view  from 
phenomena:  the  view  of  the  perceiver  himself,  and  the  view 
of  the  observer  of  the  phenomena  of  impression  and  sensation. 
And  the  psychology  which  I  am  speaking  of  stands  upon  two 
stools  in  a  position  quite  impossible  to  maintain. 

2.  I  will  say  in  a  moment  in  what  way  sensation  and 
perception  may  to  a  certain  degree  be  put  together  as  two 
processes :  but  as  Stewart  describes  them  here,  they  are  one. 
More  accurately :  Stewart's  sensation  is  sensation  as  I  have 
described  it,  the  basal  fact  Stewart's  impression  is  what  I  have 
called  the  corporeal  communication.  Stewart's  perception  is  the 
sensation,  looking  the  other  way.  Only  when  Stewart  speaks, 
first,  of  the  sensation  as  sensation,  it  is  left  unexamined.  All 
the  study  or  investigation  is  directed  to  the  impression  or 
communication  which  is  accompanied  by  the  sensation.  Then, 
when  Stewart  speaks,  second,  of  the  perception,  (or  as  I 
should  say,  of  the  sensation  or  perception),  it  is  to  a  certain 
extent  analyzed,  and  we  are  told  what  it  is  a  sensation  or 
perception  of:  in  other  words,  what,  in  the  realm  of  thought 
(which  we  are  in  now,  analyzing  a  sensation  described  as 
quite  out  of  relation  with  matter)  it  results  in  or  developes 
into,  viz.  a  perception  of  the  existence  and  qualities  of 
bodies.  The  sensation  in  fact  is  of  self-hood  or  I-hood,  with 
the  added  consciousness  either  of  pleasure  and  pain  or  of  will, 
and  of  something  conceived  as  occasion  of  the  pleasure  and 
pain,  or  reaction  against  the  will ;  which  something,  according 
to  the  varied  nature  of  the  sensation,  we  conceive  in  various 
manners,  and  call  the  whole  result  of  our  conception  body  and 
its  qualities.  These  occasions  and  reactions  are,  if  we  like  to 
use  the  language,  the  same  thing  as  the  impressions  or  com- 
munication :  that  is,  the  two  ways  of  speaking  are  two  ways  of 
describing  the  same  thing  or  things :  seen  from  within,  they  are 
the  occasions  or  reactions :  seen  from  without,  or  studied  by  the 
physiological  anatomist,  they  are  the  impressions  or  communi- 
cation. 

It  is  to  be  remembered,  that  though,  in  studying  the  bodily 


'>  ' 


states,  we  carefully  distinguish  between  them  and  the  accom- 
panying proper  sensation,  we  must  still  suppose  this  latter  as 
what,  m  our  inward  following  of  the  bodily  states,  they  end  in 
nor  IS  there  any  harm,  if  we  can,  and  so  far  as  we  can,  in  taking 
physiological  hold  (so  to  speak)  of  the  sensation,  or  making 
efforts  to  give  a  physiological  account  of  it.     All  that  I  have 
protested  against  is  the  refusing  to  admit  as  real  what  cannot 
have  this  physiological  account  given  of  it,  whereas  it  is  what 
IS  most  real  of  anything,  as  seen  from  the  point  of  view  of 
highest  reality  and  most  intimate  knowledge.     Let  us  have  a 
phenomenalist  study  of  states  of  mind  (so  to  call  them)  so  far 
as  we  can  get  at  them  by  following  inwards  the  anatomy  of  our 
nerves  and  brain:  this  is  what  I  have  never  dissented  from  • 
what  I  have  protested  against  has  been  putting  into  the  same 
class   facts   of   matter  as   phenomena   of   a  spatial   universe, 
and  teelmgs  as  feelings  or  consciousnesses,  that  is,  as  we  know 
them  each  for  himself  individually,  not  by  the  road  of  physio- 
logical and  anatomical  study;  whereas  our  feelings  belong  to  a 
different  and  higher  domain  of  thought,  the  whole  existence  of 
this  universe  itself  being  one  of  them. 

I  have  mentioned  this  because,  in  the  study  of  the  impres- 
sion  or  communication,  this  consciousness  must  be  continually 
supposed,  and  because  of  course  there  is  (what  we  may  call) 
local  sensitiveness  of  the  nerves  of  the  body,  while  nevertheless 
the  sensation,  as  such,  is  all  one  :  it  is  we  that  feel,  not  our  body 
m  this  or  that  part  of  it.     This  being  so,  it  is  unwise  to  throw 
any  hmdrance  in  the  way  of  such  physiological  investigation,  so 
far  as  it  can  go.    The  phrase  ^  impression  on  the  organs  of  sense ' 
inevitably  suggests  a  sort  of  local  sensitiveness :   considering 
Stewart  s  distinction  of  it  from  sensation,  it  ought  to  mean  only 
material  displacement :  but  we  cannot  help  its  conveying  more 
1  have  used  the  expression,  corporeal  or  material  communica- 
tion: but  of  course  in  using  these  terms  (and  it  would  be  the 
same  with  any),  one  must  be  prepared  to  accept  physical  and 
physiological  research  as  to  the  nature  of  matter  and  body  and 
I  am  so  most  thoroughly.     I  do  not  at  all  mean  to  assert'that 
we  can  draw  the  line  of  boundary,  proceeding  what  I  will  call 
inwards,  between   feeling  and  material  fact  or  phenomenon 

2 


•f 


18 


MEANING  OF   PERCEPTION. 


[chap. 


I  do  not  even  assert  there  is  any  such  line.     I  do  not  say  but 
that  enquirers  from  the  side  of  consciousness  and   enquirers 
from  the  side  of  phenomena  might  not  hope  ultimately  to  meet, 
like  the  excavators  at  the  opposite  ends  of  the  Mont  Gems  tunnel. 
If  ever  they  do,  our  posterity  will  have  phenomenahsm,  which 
will  not    like  the  present,  call  in  question  our  highest  and 
nearest  consciousnesses,  and  on  the  other  side  a  sort  of  con- 
sciousness or  knowledge,  which  will  enable  us  to  understand 
the   relation   between  what   I  will   call    efficient   and   formal 
creation,  viz.  the  former  the  generation  of  thmgs,  the  latter 
the  generation  of  ideas  or  knowledge.     Any  such  possibility 
as  this  however  is  not  my  present  concern. 

The  difficulty  of  drawing  this  line  of  boundary  is  a  sort  ot 
excuse  for  all  that  philosophy  which,  as  I  said  a  short  time 
since,  neglects  the  difiference  between  the  sensation  as  con- 
sciousness and  the  sensation  as  communication,  if  only  it  be 
kept  in  mind  that  when  this  is  so,  the  investigation  is  really 
what  I  call  phenomenalist :  le.  that  it  is  not  in  a  position  to 
dispute,  from  its  point  of  imperfect  hold  of  sensation  as  con- 
sciousness, anything  which  is  borne  witness  to  by  consciousness 
from  its  own  proper  point  of  view. 

I  have  been  a  little  too  long  on  a  by-point,  and  now  return 
to  Stewart.    We  have  three  things  given  by  him  as  consecutive, 
impression,  sensation,  perception,  which  are  really,  m  substance, 
three  views  of  the  same  thing:   there  is  no  consecution   or 
sequence :  all  is  contemporaneous.     The  sensation  is  the 'basal 
fact'-  and  this  may  be  exhibited  either,  from  the  pomt  of  view 
of  the  spatial  universe,  as  impression  on  the  organs  of  sense 
vanishing  unfollowably  into  sensation  or  consciousness,  or,  from 
the  point  of  view  of  consciousness,  as  thought  digesting  and 
analysing  particular  consciousnesses  or  sensations,  and  mter- 
'  preting  portions  of  them  into  what  we  then  call  quahties  of 
body,  calling  at  the  same  time  our  mental  relation  to  them 

'perception  of  them.'  . 

3.  Stewart's  supposition  of  consecution  or  sequence  m  all 
this  leads  him  into  many  perplexities  and  inconsistencies. 

One  of  the  purposes  which  I  have  proposed  to  myself  m  what 
I  am  now  doing  is  to  get  a  clearer  and  better  phenomenalism 


II.] 


MILL  AND  STEWART. 


19 


by  removing  philosophy  which  is  out  of  place,  and  I  think 
what  Stewart  says  about  consecution  here  puzzles  it. 

Causation  or  production,  he  says,  is  merely  a  particular 
form  of  antecedence :  we  need  not  wonder  therefore  at  sensation 
succeeding  impression,  however  dififerent  the  two:  we  know 
about  them  the  same  that  we  know  about  any  cause  and  effect, 
and  ought  to  be  satisfied. 

We  find  in  Mr  Mill's  Logic  (and  may  do  so,  I  suppose,  in 
other  books)  how  cause  and  effect  are  to  be  looked  at  from  the 
phenomenalist   point  of  view^:   something   very   different,  it 
seems  to  me,  from  what  there  is  here  in  Stewart.     Observe  the 
confusion  of  language :  how  the  consecutional  relation  is  spoken 
of  sometimes  as  production,  sometimes  as  sequence,  sometimes 
as  (whatever  it  may  mean)  correspondence.     How  inconsistent 
here,  where  the  purpose  is  carefully  to  examine  the  supposed 
consecution,  to  attribute  (which  often  is  no  harm)  activity  to 
the   object,  and  talking  of  its  producing  impressions  on  the 
organs  of  sense.     Then,  what  is  the  meaning  of  talking  of  alJ 
the  steps  of  the  process  as  equally  incomprehensible  ?  if  they 
are  matters  of  simple   consecution,  or  of  causation   as  such, 
what  is  there  to  comprehend  ?     Again,  what  is  the  meaning  of 
*  arbitrariness '  in  the  connexion  between  impression  and  sensa- 
tion and  between  sensation  and  perception  ?    Stewart  had  said,  a 
page  or  two  before*,  in  a  manner  to  which  I  have  just  referred, 
'  It  seems  now  to  be  pretty  generally  agreed  among  philosophers,* 
that  there  is  no  instance  in  which  we  are  able  to  perceive  a 
necessary  connexion  between  two  successive  events,'  and   he 
ends  a  long  sentence  to  which  I  refer  the  reader,  in  explanation 
of  his  views  as  to  '  causation,'  by  saying  :  '  and,  if  there  are  any 
such  (i.e.  necessary)  connexions  existing,  we  may  rest  assured 
that  we  shall  never  be  able  to  discover  them.'     How  then  could 
the  connexions  here  be  other  than  arbitrary  ?  and  what  could 
the  sensations  be,  in  reference  to  the  perceptions,  more  than  the 
occasions  of  them  ?     And  then, '  from  this  view  of  the  subject 
—i.e.  the  view  '  that  our  sensations  are  followed  by  a  perception 
of  the  existence  and  qualities  of  the  bodies  (previously  called 


1  Expl  p.  222. 


p.  96. 


2—2 


20 


MEANING  OF  PERCEPTION. 


[chap. 


*  objects ')  by  which  the  impressions  are  made— it  follows,  that 

*  it  is  the  external  objects  themselves,  and  not  any  species  or 
images  of  these  objects,  that  the  mind  perceives':  is  this  re- 
assertion,  or  inference,  or  what? 

I  am  afraid,  however,  that  to  understand  what  I  have  said 
as  to  the  clearness  of  our  view  of  phenomena  being  injured  by 
associating  with  it  the  consideration  of  our  manner  of  sensation 
of  them  the  reader  must  look  at  the  context  preceding  the 
passage  which  I  have  quoted.  It  is  itself  too  long  to  quote. 
I  would,  however,  slightly  refer  to  it,  because  it  illustrates  the 
general  confusion  of  view  of  which  I  have  spoken. 

Stewart^  quotes  a  variety  of  passages  in  which  authors  have 
held  that   the  mind,  and  that  which   it   perceives,  must   be 
present  the  one  to  the  other ;  because  a  thing  cannot  act  where 
it  is  not ;  and,  therefore,  whether  it  is  the  object  that  affects 
the  mind,  or  the  mind  that,  in  perceiving,  acts  upon  the  object, 
they  must   be   together.     Hence,   Stewart   says,  philosophers 
have  been  driven  to  the  unsatisfactory  alternative  of  saying, 
either  that  the  actual  object  perceived  was  at  the  nerves  or 
sensorium,  and  that  we  did  not  perceive  the  things  themselves, 
or  that  the  mind,  in  perceiving,  was  present  all  over  space 
wherever  there  was  an  object  perceived.     Stewart  says,  there  is 
no  occasion  for  this  supposed  presence,  and  that  we  are  not 
entitled  to  say  that  a  thing  cannot  act  where  it  is  not.     What 
/  say  is,  that  if  we  are  speaking  of  thought,  the  associating  it 
with  locality  has  no  meaning':   it  is  not,  'I  am  here,  and  I 
think  I  see  a  candle  before  me,'  but  '  I  think  that  I  am  here, 
and   that  I   see   a   candle   before   me':    the   thought    is  not 
comprehended  in  the  space,  but  comprehends  it  as  an  object 
with  the  other  objects :  as  thought,  it  is  unheal :  the  thought 
may  be  in  some  '  continent^  to  use  the  language  which  I  have 
used,  but  this  is  not  space,  for  the  space   is  in  the  thought. 
Now  it  will  be  seen  that  all  the  speculators  whom  Stewart  here 
quotes,  are  obliged  to  '  unlocalize '  (or  '  delocalize ')  something. 
One  set  do  so  to  the  object :  '  the  sun,'  they  say,  ^  which  our  mind 
perceives  is  not  in  far  off  space,  but  is  in  our  sensorium.'     An 


XL] 


MILL  AND  STEWART. 


21 


1  Ic.  p.  99  foil. 


«  Expl.  pp.  88,  117. 


3  Expl.  p.  10. 


opposite  set  do  so  to  the  mind:  'the  mind,'  they  say,  'when  it 
perceives  what  is  distant  from  the  body,  is  not  where  the  body 
IS,  but  present  with  the  distant  object.'    Observe  this  •   the 
mind,  capable  of  locality,  is  yet  not  where  the  body  is     I 
think  Stewart  is  right  in  saying  that,  when  we  speak  of'  the 
rmnd  acting,  or  anything  acting  upon  the  mind,  we  are  in  no 
relation  to  locality,  and  are  not  at  all  entitled  to  say,  that  a 
thing  cannot  act  where   it  is  not:    but   on   account   of  the 
imperious  necessity  of  all  this  philosophy  to  co-ordinate,  a^  I 
have  called  it,  thought  and  phenomenal  action,  he  cannot  say 
this  without  addmg,  '  Even  in  regard  of  mechanical  action  we 
cannot   understand   the  action   of  a   body,  where  it  is-  'the 
commumcation  of  motion  by  impulse  to  a  thing  in  contact  with 
It  IS  a  phenomenon  as  inexplicable  really  as  any  communication 
we  may  suppose  between  two  things  separated  the  one  from 
the  other  by  a  vacuum.'    Now  this  was  not  what  we  wanted. 
It  IS  what  I  alluded  to  as  puzzling  phenomenalism  by  philo- 
sophy in  order  that  we  may  be  able  to  account  phenomenally 
for  what  does  not  need  to  be  so  accounted  for.     It  is  in  analogy 
with  a  line  of  argument  not  uncommon  now  in  the  higher 
philosophy    wkch  calls  upon  us   to  digest  difficulty  becLe 
there  IS  difficulty  even  in  what   we   have   hitherto  thoughl 
easiest.     The  communication  of  motion  by  impulse  is  one  of 
the  simplest  of  phenomena,  however  difficult  may  be  its  ulterior 
explanation.     The  question  as  to  the  acting,  or  being  Jed  on 
of  mind   IS  Can  It  be  brought  into  relation  with  the  order  o 
things  of  which  this  communication  of  motion  by  impulse  is  a 
eading  phenomenon  ?    To  say  that  we  do  not  understand  this 
latter,  and  that  therefore  we  may  say  what  we  please  of  the 
former,  is  not  to  the  purpose. 

.V,  ^\T^  *^u^  '™P'^''  "^^y  "'^  '^"'^"g  ^»  this  to  say,  that 
thought,  a.  thought,  has  no  pla.e  ?  On  what  conceivable  Z. 
ciples  or  by  what  logic,  can  it  ever  be  settled  whether  the 
objec  IS  m  the  brain,  or  in  the  mind  away  from  the  body  at  the 
object,  or  whether  they  act  one  on  the  other  afar  ofr,-a  thing 

understand  how  a  bat  acts  upon  a  cricket-ball  near  ? 

Let  us  then  gain  first  a  clear  view  of  the  phenomenal  state 


22 


MEANING  OF   PERCEPTION. 


[chap. 


of  things,  dismissing  all  talk  of  qualities  and  all  logical  words, 
and  all  supposition  of  objects  operating  or  acting,  or  mind  acting 
(now),  or  anything  acting  which  we  do  not  know  physically  to 
move  or  stir  something  else.  We  have  then  the  sun  by  means 
of  light  'en  rapport'  with  our  brain,  and  we  know  that  there  is 
a  consciousness  accompanying  this  relation,  which  consciousness 
however  we  do  not,  because  we  cannot,  follow.  Here  is  the 
region  to  which  all  our  notions  of  space,  distance,  mechanical 
action,  belong,  and  in  which  we  may  trust  to  them. 

But  if  we  want  to  analyze  our  consciousness  we  come  to 
a  different  region.  Then  let  us  freely  use  our  logical  terms, 
our  language  about  the  mind  acting  and  being  acted  on,  let  us 
talk  of  subject  and  object,  notions  and  ideas,  but  let  us  not 
localize,  i.e.  phenomenally  realize  them.  There  are  no  qualities 
in  the  world  of  space,  no  notions  or  ideas  in  it,  not  properly 
objects,  not  properly  colours :  we  can  fix  no  locality  for  these, 

nor  need  we. 

The  use  or  necessity  of  all  this  logical  language   arises 
from— what  we  may  variously  call— either  the  absence  of  any 
fixed  point  to  fasten  our  knowledge  on,  or  the  incompleteness 
of  our  knowledge,  such  incompleteness  necessarily  involving 
a  certain  amount  of  wrongness,  or  in  other  ways.     This  logical 
language  is  the  language  of  learners :  it  is  supposition  to  be 
gradually  replaced  by  knowledge  of  fact,  but  still  to  go  on 
in  our  process  of  learning  more  fact :  it  is  the  centering,  by 
the  aid  of  which  we  build  our  arches  of  knowledge  one  after 
another:   it  has  only  relation  to  the  building:   when  we  are 
dealing  with  what  is  built,  the  actual  knowledge,  we  must 
have  it  out  of  the  way.     Qualities  of  bodies,  or  of  matter,  or 
of  the  universe  are  not  realities  of  any  kind :  and  the  bodies, 
or  matter,  or  the  universe,  are  not  realities  when  we  speak 
of   them   as    constituting    the    substratum   of   the   qualities: 
they  are  realities  as  compositions  of  a  variety  of  material  or 
phenomenal  elements :   and  similarly  '  qualities '  is  a  term  by 
which    for   particular  purposes,   we    designate    these   various 
elements,  and  such  things.     It  is  here  that  popular  or  common 
language  continually  betrays  us :  not  that  it  is  its  fault  that  it 
does  so,  as  philosophers  one  after  the  other,  in  a  manner  very 


II.] 


MILL   AND  STEWART. 


23 


wearying  to  my  patience,  have  reiterated;  but  ours.     Popular 
language  is  the  language,  as  all  our  thought  is  the  thought, 
of  learners :  a  complete  philosophical  language  at  any  stage  of 
knowledge   short   of  complete,   say  the  present,  would    be   a 
hindrance  to  advance :  we  do  not  want  our  language  to  fit  any 
particular  stage  of  our  knowledge,  because  then  it  would  not  fit 
the  next:  we  should  be  like  growing  boys  in  an  old  dress, 
cribbed,  confined,  embarrassed,  not  knowing  what  to  do  with 
ourselves.     All  this  logical  and  common  language  is  an  elastic 
dress  of  our  thought,  which  will  fit  any  particular  state  of 
knowledge,  if  we  use  it  properly.     There  is  no  harm  in  our 
using  the  term  '  colour '  now,  in  respect  to  any  particular  body, 
though  we   know   it   to  be   exceedingly  different   from  what 
people,  Aristotle  for  instance,  thought  was  the  case,  when  they 
talked  and  reasoned  about  colour  long  ago.     In  the  same  way 
we  may  talk  of  secondary  qualities,  and  this  '  colour '  as  one  of 
them,  and  may  find  it  very  convenient  to  do  so.     But  it  is  only 
convenient   on   the   condition   of  our   not  (what  I  may  call) 
mis-realizing  them.    It  is  merely  unmeaning  to  discuss  whether 
colour  is  in  the  brain,  or  in  the  object,  or  where  it  is,  as  if  it 
was  something  which  we  knew  must  be  somewhere.     Let  us 
convert   every  such   apparent  problem  as  this  into  the   real 
problem  or  problems,  viz.  what  are  the  physical  circumstances 
of  our  brain  and  of  the  thing  which  we  consider  we  see  and  of 
the  interval  between  them,  as  to  light,  on  the  occasion  of  the 
seeing  ?  and  so,  if  we  like,  for  the  philosophical  problem  also, 
what  are  the  circumstances  of  consciousness  which  make  us  say 
that  out  of  all  the  field  of  view,  we  see  that  thing  ? 

The  use  of  this  logical  language  is  for  the  purpose  of 
keeping  up  a  relation,  if  I  may  so  speak,  between  the  two 
manners  of  thought,  that  of  consciousness  and  that  of  pheno- 
menalism: or,  which  is  the  same  thing,  between  the  two  views 
of  knowledge  which  I  mentioned^,  that  of  judgment  and  that 
of  acquaintance.  The  phenomenalist  says,  with  some  reason. 
Away  with  qualities— let  me  have  things.  Let  me  see  and 
thmk  of  the  white  object  as  it  is,  namely  as  a  mass  of  matter 


1  Expl.  pp.  60,  122,  148. 


24 


MEANING  OF   PERCEFriON. 


[chap. 


of  a  certain  chemical  constitution,  one  feature  [of  which  is  to 
reflect  white  light  to  my  organ  of  vision]  ^ 

The  knowing  things  in  the  two  ways  which  I  have  de- 
scribed, viz.  with  knowledge  of  acquaintance  and  knowledge  of 
judgment,  is  the  knowing  them  in  the  first  case  substantively 
or   substantially,   in   the   second   adjectively  or    predicatively. 
For   a  complete  phenomenalism,  if  we  may  so  speak,  there 
are  no  adjectives  and  no  adjectival  substantives,  like  whiteness, 
hardness :  the  realities  of  the  world  are  things  of  different  sorts, 
elements  {e.g.  fluids,  minerals,  &c.)  and  compositions  of  these 
again  with  definite  shape,  which  are  what  we  commonly  call 
things,  and  so  on.     Besides  these  things  of  course  there  are 
movements,   which    are    the   (physical)    reason   for  verbs,   and 
various  facts  in  this  way  happen  about  the  things.     What  we 
express  by  adjectives  is  facts  about  the  things  (Mr  Mill  has 
treated  this  well).     When  we  say  a  thing  is  blue,  what  we 
mean  is  that  it  absorbs  all  the  light  but  the  blue,  and  transmits 
the  blue  light.     But  this  is  what  we  come  to  find  out  about  it, 
and  as  we  have  come  to  find  out  this,  we  shall  perhaps  come 
to  find  out  more  of  the  fact,  so  that  this  our  present  view  will 
be  absorbed  in  a  wider  and,  so  far,  truer  one.     In  the  mean 
time   we   began   with   describing   this   fact,   when   altogether 
vaguely  conceived,  by  saying,  'the  thing  is  blue':  now  that  it 
is  pretty  clearly  conceived  we  continue  to  call  it  blue,  and  have 
not  thought  it  necessary  to  alter  our  language  and  say, '  Blue 
is  just  the  colour  which  we  ought  not  to  call  the  thing,  because 
the  blue  rays  leave  the  thing,  and  it  is  just  the  rays  which  are 
not  blue  which  remain  in  it,  and  form  a  part  of  it.      let  it  is 
clear  that,  when  people  first  called  the  thing  blue,  they  thought 
it  was  the  blue  light,  or  as  they  would  say  colour,  that  was  in 
the  thing.      We  may  explain  the  calling  the  thing  blue  by 
saying,  this  represents  our  sensation,  the  communication  be- 
tween the  thing  and  us :  but  this  was  not  so  to  the  people  who 
first  made  the  language,  nor  is  it  to  the  mass  of  people  who  use 
the  language  now. 

Advancing  physical  knowledge  thus  converts  all  the  qualities 


The  clause  in  brackets  is  added  by  the  editor. 


II.] 


MILL  AND   STEWART. 


25 


which  are  what  we  express  by  adjectives,  into  things  and  facts 
expressed  by  substantives  and  verbs— blue  colour  for  instance  is 

luminous  undulation  of  such  and  such  an  amount  or  rapidity 

and  this  is  what  we  call  coming  to  the  knowledge  of  things : 
as  in  fact  it  is. 

But  the  manner  of  our  gaining  our  knowledge,  as  I  have 
several  times  said,  is  by  the  union  of  the  contact  or  communi- 
cation which,  so  far  as  it  is  able  to  become  knowledge,  is 
knowledge  of  acquaintance,  and  generates  phenomenalism,  and 
the  judgment  or  thought  which  is  knowledge  proper.  (In 
calling  this  union,  1  guard  myself:  its  nature  I  have  explained.) 
For  a  complete  judgment  of  the  universe  we  have  one  initiatory 
substantive,  and  all  our  proceeding  is  by  adjectives  or  predicates 
of  it :  for  substantives  predicated  of  a  subject  are  pro  tanto 
adjectives.  It  is  this  way  of  viewing  knowledge  which  led  to 
Aristotle's  arrangement  of  categories,  as  I  said  in  beginning 
to  speak  of  Mr  Mill's  book* :  it  is  this  way  again  which  has  led 
philosophers  and  psychologists,  in  speaking  of  our  sensation 
and  perception,  to  describe  the  object  of  it,  not  generally  as 
things,  but  as  primary,  secondary,  &c.  qualities  of  the  initiatory 
thing,  the  subject  of  which  all  our  after  phenomenal  knowledge 
is  the  great  predicate,  matter,  body,  or  whatever  we  call  it. 

As  I  have  said  before,  this  matter^  or  body  is  not  something 
mysterious  and  unknown,  but  is  known  in  so  far  as  we  know 
its  qualities,  and  otherwise  there  is  nothing  to  know:  it  is 
assumption  only  for  the  purpose  of  after  knowledge. 

Knowledge  proceeds,  as  language  shows  us,  by  the  way  of 
acquaintance  and  judgment,  or  notice  and  predication,  or 
realization  and  description,  or  by  whatever  other  pairs  of  names 
we  like  to  use  for  the  conjunct  processes,  the  one  supplying 
us  with  subjects  or  substantives,  the  other  with  adjectives  or 
descriptive  terms. 

We  mentally  construct  the  universe  by  imagining  space, 
and  furnishing  it  in  the  same  manner  with  what  we  call  matter, 
like  and  in  communication  with  our  body,  arranged  in  units  or 
portions  which  we  call  things:   and  then  by  hanging  on  to 


1  ExpL  pp.  151, 160. 


Expl.  pp.  147,  176,  186  foil. 


26 


MEANING   OF  PERCEPTION. 


[chap. 


II.] 


MILL  AND   STEWART. 


27 


these  things  notions  or  thoughts  about  them,  which  we  call 
their  qualities.  If  we  want  to  suppose,  for  these  qualities,  an 
existence  like  that  of  the  things,  we  have  to  analyze  them  and 
translate  them,  into  things  and  facts.  But  when  we  simply 
express  the  quality  substantively,  as  hardness,  whiteness,  we 
are  expressing  no  phenomenal  existence;  that  is,  we  are 
expressing  what  is  still  in  the  form  of  a  thought  of  ours  about 
things,  and  though  what  we  call  things  may  be  really  no  more 
at  the  bottom  than  this,  yet  they  are,  as  I  have  expressed  it, 
deposited,  crystallized,  become  part  of  the  abstraction  which 
we  call  phenomenalism,  or  phenomenal  reality.  We  may  make 
the  other  so  if  we  like  it:  the  notion  colour  is  very  readily 
translated  into  the  phenomenal  facts  which  are  concerned  with 
light,  and  then  we  at  once  see  the  spatial  relations. 

But  I  am  getting  to  much  too  great  a  length  and  depth 
on  this  subject,  and  quite  leaving  the  passage  of  Stewart  which 
I  began  with  examining.  I  will  just  finish  with  an  illustration 
which  will  give  me  occasion  also  to  speak  of  the  circumstances 
under  which  the  notions  of  'sensation'  and  'perception'  may 
legitimately  be  put  together. 

Suppose  the  object  of  thought  is  a  plough. 

We  perceive  then,  in  Stewart's  language,  its  existence  and 
qualities.  These  'qualities'  are  the  primary,  secondary,  &c. 
which  have  been  abundantly  discussed. 

I  do  not  at  all  quarrel  with  the  manner  of  expression.  The 
question  is,  How  are  we  to  realize  it?  Or  in  other  words, 
What  does  it  exactly  mean? 

The  logical  'mis-realization'  which  I  have  condemned  is 
this :  the  supposition  that  '  the  thing  in  itself,' '  the  plough  in 
itself,'  the  siibstratum,  is  something  unknown  and  unknowable ; 
that  body,  matter,  or  whatever  we  call  it  (which  has  the 
qualities  which  we  then  besides  perceive)  is  something  similarly 
unknowable ;  in  other  words,  that  we  do  not  know  the  meaning 
of  existence,  while  nevertheless  in  Stewart's  words  we  perceive 
existence.  This  is  the  first  portion  of  the  logical  mis-reali- 
zation :  corresponding  with  this  is  the  second,  that  the  qualities 
are  realities,  and  realities  which  are  known:   that  hardness, 


redness  (if  the  plough  is  red)  and  other  such  adjectival 
substantives,  represent  things.  The  reasons  for  my  noting 
this  latter,  which  as  thus  barely  put  is  alien  from  our  present 
ways  of  thinking,  are  two :  first  because  the  former,  which,  as 
we  have  seen,  prevails  extensively  in  our  present  way  of 
thinking,  really  goes  hand  in  hand  with  it:  next,  because, 
though  in  this  broad  way  we  do  not  take  the  qualities  for 
reahties,  yet  it  seems  to  me  (from  observation  and  experience 
both)  that  the  language  about  'qualities'  introduces  much 
difficulty,  when  one  begins  to  think  what  we  see  or  perceive, 
and  even  confusion,  when  we  come  to  specify  and  classify  the 
qualities.  However,  I  do  not  complain  of  the  language,  so 
long  as  we  can  keep  it  clear  of  confusion. 

We  may  realize,  it  seems  to  me,  or  conceive  reality,  in  two 
ways,  and  also  in  a  certain  way  mixed  of  the  two :  but  not  in 
the  psychological  way. 

The  first  gives  us  what  I  have  called  phenomenal  reality. 
For  this  we  take  knowledge^  as  Stewart  first  describes  it,  viz.  as 
impression  (my  'communication')  followed  by  sensation,  un- 
examinable  further.     The  impression,  Stewart  says,  is  produced 
by  'external  objects.'    Keeping  up  the  metaphor  of  'impression' 
(for  which   may   be   substituted   the    more    exact   'corporeal 
communication')  what  does  'object'  (or  objects)  mean  here? 
As  it   is   what    impresses   (or    corporeally   communicates),   it 
means  carbon,  oxygen,  &c.  (constituents   of  wood),  the   con- 
stituents   of    iron,    whatever    they    may    be,    light    (causing 
colour) — all  these  in  a  shape  which  we  can  in  such  and  such 
a  manner  handle.    Now  here  comes  the  point.    Phenomenalism, 
as  I  have  said,  is  a  manner  in  which  we  can  hold  knowledge,  but 
not  a  manner  in  which  we  can  get  it.    Supposing  our  knowledge 
complete,  it  might  be  considered  as  much  a  phenomenon  or 
fact  about  the   plough,  that   it   turns   up  the  ground,  or  is 
meant  to  turn  up  the  ground,  or  however  we  describe  it,  as 
that   it   is  of  wood  and  iron,  its   colour  red,  and  its  shape 
whatever  it  might  be.     And  it  is  this  its  purpose,  meaning, 
use,  which  makes  it  a  plough,  i.e.  which  makes  us  call  it  a 
plough.     It  is  a  plough,  i.e.  the  thing  which  it  is,  in  virtue  of 
its  doing  this,  or  being  meant  or  intended  to  do  this,  not  in 


28 


MEANING  OF  PERCEPTION. 


[chap. 


virtue  of  its  being  wood  and  iron  and  in  colour  red.  When 
then  we  realize  according  to  the  abstraction  which  I  have 
called  phenomenalism,  we  have  as  the  most  important  or 
highest  facts  (facts,  that  is,  which  most  make  things  things) 
certain  facts  which  in  their  own  nature  we  need  not  dissociate 
from  the  rest  of  phenomena,  but  which  only  half  belong  to 
phenomenalism,  because  we  cannot  give  that  full  account  of 
them,  phenomenally,  which  we  could  wish:  because,  though 
we  can  conceive  phenomenal  knowledge  of  them,  we  get  our 
knowledge  of  them  another  way. 

The  second  way  of  realizing  gives  us  'philosophical  reality,* 
as  I  have  called  it, — the  highest  and  most  comprehensive 
reality,  viz.  right  thought  about  what  we  think  of.  In  this  we 
take  knowledge,  as  Stewart  in  the  second  account  describes  it, 
omitting  his  confusion  between  it  and  the  first,  which  I  have 
noticed,  and  bearing  in  mind,  as  I  have  also  noticed,  how  this 
language  about  qualities  is  for  a  particular  purpose,  which 
must  not  mislead  us:  we  have  not  impression  or  communication, 
but  perception  as  I  lately  described  it,  or  consciousness  as  I 
described  it  before. 

In  this,  what  things  are  substantially,  or  we  might  say 
materially,  is  not  an  object  of  our  thought :  they  are  what  they 
do,  what  is  done  to  them,  what  they  are  meant  or  made  for, 
what  they  are  of  use  for,  what  they  remind  us  of,  what  we 
think  about  them  in  fact,  with  the  important  addition  which 
we  make  to  our  thought,  viz.  that  we  have  reason  in  thinking 
so.  This  is,  in  philosophic  language,  the  conceiving  things, 
the  forming  notions  of  them,  and  the  notion  is  the  thing.  As 
Dido  'concipit  flammas,'  begins  to  feel  love,  so  we  'conceive 
things,'  begin  to  feel  or  think  them,  and  they  are  things.  In 
this  way  of  realizing,  the  plough  is  the  thing  wtiich  turns  up 
the  ground,  or  which  is  made  and  meant  for  that  purpose :  this 
is  its  existence,  and  so  far  from  being  unknowable,  it  is  the 
first  and  main  thing  known  about  it :  the  thing  in  itself  is  that 
which  we  begin  with.  Stewart,  in  speaking  of  his  perception, 
puts  things  in  their  right  order ;  *  a  perception  of  the  existence 
and  qualities':  the  'existence'  here  as  realized,  not  being 
a  logical  substratum  of  the  qualities,  but  the  most  real  and 


n] 


MILL   AND   STEWART. 


29 


actual  being  of  the  thing,  that  which  makes  us  call  it  a  plough, 
and  to  which  all  the  'qualities,'  hardness,  colour,  &c.  are 
comparatively  accidental. 

If  we  now  make  the  same  supposition  as  we  did  in  the  case 
of  phenomenalism,  assuming  the  completeness  of  our  knowledge 
from  the  other  point  of  view: — i.e.  that  we  thought  rightly, 
and  judged  correctly,  about  whatever  could  be  thought  of, 
without  any  corporeal  communication  with  anything, — we  come 
then  to  something  which,  as  contrasted  with  phenomenalism, 
is  (in  my  mind)  the  highest  fact,  and  the  true  account  of  know- 
ledge :  but  still  which  is  not,  any  more  than  phenomenalism, 
knowledge  as  we  learn  it,  attain  to  it,  and  have  it.  We  should 
then  understand  all  that  communicates  with  our  frame,  and  the 
manner  of  communication,  and  our  frame  itself,  not  as  now,  by 
particular  sensations  accompanying  the  particular  communica- 
tions, but  as  a  Creator  of  the  whole  might  have  fore-understood 
his  work,  or  as  a  bystander  able  to  enter  into  all. 

As  it  is,  we  are  in  the  position  of  beings,  one  portion  of 
whose  thought  is  of  ourselves  as  communicating  with  some 
particular  portion,  or  portions,  of  what  we  consider  a  spatial 
universe ;  while  at  the  same  time  we  are  able  to  see,  both  that 
it  is  a  portion,  not  all,  of  our  thought  about  ourselves,  and  also 
that  the  portion  of  this  universe  which  we  communicate  with 
is  but  a  small  portion  of  it :  that  is,  our  thought  expands  itself 
beyond,  and  comprehends,  both  our  experience  on  the  whole, 
and  the  sum  of  our  particular  experiences.  And  with  all  this, 
we  are  not  knowers,  but  learners:  we  may  be  said  really  to 
know  nothing,  in  so  far  as  incompleteness  is  in  a  sense  falsity, 
and  more  especially  incompleteness  in  a  case  such  as  ours, 
where  on  every  side  we  are  freshly  learning.  My  difference 
with  those  who  talk  of  an  'unknowable'  is  this,  that  though 
we  may  know  nothing,  we  are  learners  of  everything. 

Our  process  of  learning,  or  advancing  in  knowledge,  is,  as  I 
have  at  various  times  said,  by  the  double  manner  of  acquaint- 
ance and  thought,  communication  and  thought,  or  in  whatever 
way  we  like  to  characterize  them :  not  that  we  gain  one 
portion  of  our  knowledge  in  one  way,  and  one  portion  in 
another,  but  that  we  gain  all  our  knowledge,  and  each  portion 


30 


MEANING  OF   PERCEPTION. 


[chap. 


II.] 


MILL   AND  STEWART. 


31 


of  it,  by  the  mixture  of  the  two.  Either  would  be  knowing, 
the  one  more  thorough  knowing  than  the  other:  the  mixture 
of  the  two  is  learning :  it  is  because  we  cannot  in  ourselves 
dissever  the  two  that  we  seem  to  know  nothing :  but  this  is 
only  because  in  regard  of  everything  we  are  in  a  better  position 
— the  position  of  learners. 

Hence,  if  we  take  care  how  we  use  the  words,  there  is  no 
harm  in  saying  that  those  parts  of  knowledge  which,  as  I  have 
just  described,  have  least  the  character  of  phenomenalism  are 
objects  of  perception,  and  that  those  parts  of  knowledge  which, 
in   the   same   way,  have   least   the   character  of  thought  are 
objects  of  sensation :  and  in  fact,  this  represents  to  a  certain 
degree  the  way  of  our  learning,  of  our  coming  to  the  knowledge 
of  one  and  the  other  sort  of  objects.     But  we  must  remember, 
that  according  to  the  way  we  look,  all  knowledge  is  perception, 
or  all  knowledge  is  sensation :  we  really  perceive  equally  the 
purpose,  the  shape,  and  the  colour  of  the  plough :  or,  the  other 
way,  the  colour,  the   shape,  and   the   purpose  of  the  plough 
equally   impress    us    or    communicate    with   us,   at   different 
points  of  the  scale  of  our  intellectual  organization.     These  two 
manners  of  knowing  represent  two  methods  of  learning,  and 
though,  in  a  manner,  we  learn  each  point  of  our  knowledge  by 
the  two  methods  combined,  still  at  a  higher  point  in  the  scale 
there  enters  more  of  the  one  method,  lower  down  in  the  scale 
there  enters  more  of  the  other :  and  therefore,  if  we  do  it  with 
care,  we  may  describe  the  objects  at  the  higher  part  of  the 
scale  as  learnt  by  way  of  thought  or  perception,  those  at  the 
lower  as  learnt  by  way  of  feeling  or  sensation. 

This  is  one  way  of  using  the  terms  sensation  and  percep- 
tion, and  if  they  are  so  used,  it  might  be  said  that  every  act  of 
observation  or  apprehension  was  divisible  into  three  parts,  the 
lower  or  chemical  sensation  of  secondary  qualities,  the  upper 
or  mechanical  sensation  of  primary  qualities,  and  the  perception 
of  the  Hhinghood'  of  the  thing.  We  might  even  suppose, 
phenomenally,  a  succession  or  order  of  time  in  this :  that  the 
colour  of  the  plough  struck  our  eyes  first,  its  shape  our  eyes 

»  Expl.  pp.  39,  106. 


and  thought  second,  its  purpose  our  thought  last.  Here  we 
have  something  like  the  succession  which  Stewart  describes: 
but  if  we  suppose  this,  as  phenomenally  we  may,  we  have  to 
remember  that  it  is  not  phenomenally  only  that  we  get  our 
knowledge,  and  that  if  it  happens  on  the  particular  occasion 
that  our  other  manner  of  learning,  thought,  is  the  more  ener- 
getic,— then  the  order  of  time  will  go  the  other  way.  When 
this  is  the  order  of  succession,  the  term  we  ordinarily  use  is 
noticing  things.  What  makes  us  think  first  about  the  plough 
and  look  at  it  may  be  the  brightness  of  its  colour,  as  we  have 
just  seen:  or  it  may  be  our  asking  ourselves,  or  wondering, 
what  it  is  meant  for  and  how  it  is  used,  and  then  we  begin 
with  perception. 

In  reality  however  there  is  not  a  succession  of  time,  though 
there  is  no  harm  in  our  supposing  it :  the  whole  act  is  one,  and 
instantaneous. 

The  above  use  of  'perception'  is  not  the  same  as  the 
following.  The  basal  fact,  as  I  have  called  it,  the  sensation  or 
consciousness,  is  triply  divisible  into  the  feeling  of  I-hood,  the 
feeling  of  pleasure  and  pain  or  of  will,  and  the  feeling,  with 
interpretation,  of  occasion  of  this  latter  feeling :  this  latter  may 
be  separated  from  the  rest  of  the  sensation  as  the  intellectual 
part  of  it,  and  called  'perception.'  This  is  Sir  William 
Hamilton's  use  of  the  term  when  he  gives  his  law,  that  sensa- 
tion and  perception  vary  inversely  the  one  as  the  other.  The 
use  is  perfectly  legitimate,  if  only  it  be  remembered  that  the 
perception  is  a  part  of  the  sensation  in  a  broader  view  of  this 
latter,  and  that  the  other  part  of  the  sensation,  in  so  far  as  it 
gives  us  knowledge,  is  intellectual  or  involves  perception:  we 
perceive  ourselves  or  know  our  own  existence  as  well  as  that 
of  the  occasions  of  our  sensation. 

All  the  fact  of  the  universe  may  be  put  in  the  form  of 
qualities,  if  we  like  so  to  put  it.  It  would  probably  now  be 
more  advantageous  if  the  old  logical  language  were  discon- 
tinued, and  if  instead  of  qualities  of  bodies  we  talked  of '  facts 
of  the  universe.'  But  it  is  only  a  difference  of  language  upon 
which  I  do  not  think  much  depends,  except  that  it  might  save 
a  little  perplexity  of  students,  some  mis-realism  of  logicians, 


32 


MEANING   OF   PERCEPTION. 


[chap.  II. 


and  would  put  some  controversies,  like  that  of  the  enumeration 
and  classification  of  these  qualities,  on  a  better  footmg.  The 
distinction  between  primary  and  secondary  qualities,  broadly 
represents  a  difference  in  our  sensations  which  will  always 
continue  one. 


CHAPTER  III. 


WHAT    IS    KNOWLEDGE?      HOW    ANSWERED    BY    LOCKE, 
COUSIN,    BERKELEY,    DESCARTES. 

Knowledge  is  the  congruence  between  thought  and  things, 
this  congruence  being  looked  at  from  the  side  of  thought — not 
that  the  word  congruence  can  here  be  much  understood,  and 
the  investigation  of  the  nature  of  knowledge  is  in  a  great 
degree  an  effort  to  understand  it. 

Thought  or  conception  may  be  considered  the  genus  of 
which  vain  imagination  and  knowledge  are  the  two  species: 
imagination  in  itself  being  considered  a  common,  or  possibly 
common,  character.  How  are  we  specifically  to  define  know- 
ledge, or  which  is  the  same  thing,  to  know  it  from  vain 
imagination  ? 

I  am  inclined  to  say — Knowledge  is  conviction  justifying 
itself  in  a  manner  which  really  justifies  it  not  only  to  itself,  but 
universally  or  to  all  possible  intelligence. 

Philosophers  generally  take  one  of  two  lines :  either  that 

(1)  Knowledge  is.  a  conviction  (i.e.  conception  involving 
persuasion  or  strong  belief)  justifying  itself  by  a  reference  of 
itself  to  things,  or  by  its  conformity  with  them. 

(2)  Knowledge  is  such  a  conviction  justifying  itself  by  its 
simple  existence,  which  is  felt  to  be  necessary  so  far  as  itself  is 
concerned,  and  considered  to  be  necessary  universally. 

The  justification  of  knowledge  by  its  conformity  with  things 
is  what  cannot  take  place  in  regard  of  the  first  or  fundamental 
portions  of  knowledge,  for  of  course  it  supposes  a  preliminary 

3 


34  WHAT  IS  KNOWLEDGE?      HOW   ANSWERED  BY       [CHAP. 

knowledge  of  things,  in  order  for  the  comparison  of  professed 
knowledge  with  them,  which  first  knowledge  is  not  susceptible 
of  being  justified  in  this  manner.  All  attempted  examination 
of  knowledge  therefore  on  this  principle  must  involve  some 
other  principle  on  which  to  deal  with  the  rudiments  or  great 
features  of  knowledge :  if  it  proceeds  as  if  it  did  not,  it  becomes 
what  I  have  called  '  mis-psychology'^ :  i.e.  it  stultifies  itself  at 
the  beginning  by  a  vast  unauthorized  assumption.  And  not 
only  so,  but  by  failing  to  take  account  of  the  great  underlying 
portions  of  knowledge,  it  lowers  and  too  much  limits  the  notion 
of  reality  or  of  things,  excluding  from  it  much  of  what  seems,  to 
me  at  least,  the  most  real. 

Still  it  is  evident  that  there  is  much  reason  in  the  view  of 
these  philosophers,  that  knowledge  must  have  other  evidence  to 
justify  itself  as  knowledge  beyond  its  own  simple  assertion,  or 
in  other  words,  that  knowledge  has  something  else  involved  in 
it  beyond  what  belongs  to  mere  thought.     Whether  we  can 
help  thinking  a  thing  or  not,  it  is  not  knowledge  because  we 
cannot  help  thinking  it,  or  in  virtue  of  our  being  unable  to 
think  otherwise :  we  mean  by  knowledge  something  which  has 
fact  corresponding  with  it,  fact  beyond  the  fact  of  its  existence, 
as  thought,  in  us.     When  put  therefore  in  its  most  general 
form,  M.  Cousin's  polemic  against  Locke  for  his  description  of 
real  knowledge  as  depending  on  the  conformity  of  ideas  with 
external  things  or  their  archetypes,  is  not  correct,  though  there 
is  much  that  is  correct  in  it.    As  it  is,  in  arguing  against  innate 
ideas,  Locke  satisfies  himself  with  endeavouring  to  maintain, 
that  in  point  of  fact,  there  are  no  ideas  which  are  sufficiently 
early,  identical,  and  universal  in  all  men  to  deserve  the  name. 
He  might  have  gone  further  and  said,  Even  if  there  were  such 
innate  ideas,  they  would  not  be  means  of  real  knowledge  to  me, 
unless  I  could  understand  that  they  had  fact  corresponding  with 
them,  beyond  the  fact  of  their  own  existence  as  ideas.    On  what 
ground  do  you  assert  that,  because  I  cannot  help  believing  that 
God  exists,  he  actually  does  exist  ?    Descartes  went  deeper  than 
Locke.     *I,  the  thinker,  exist,  is  a  fact,  as  much  as  that  the 

*  Expl.  p.  IX. 


«!•]  LOCKE,   COUSIN,  BERKELEY,  DESCARTES.  35 

thought  exists  as  thought':  this  is  what  I  understand  him  at 
bottom  to  say^and  I  think  he  is  right.  It  is  not  that  my  existence 
IS  an  innate  idea  of  mine,  from  the  existence  of  which  as  innate 
Idea  I  conclude  there  is  fact  corresponding  to  it,  but  it  is  that 
as  a  fa.t  whether  I  think  of  it  and  know  it  or  not,  my  existence 
IS  a  fact  pre-conditionmg  my  thought,  or  necessarily  existing 
previously  to  my  thought,  in  order  for  such  thought  to  bf 
possible     Here  we  have  a  fact,  which  we  might  venture  to 

7enLr,r      r"  r/""''^  *"  k^^owledge,  or  known  indepen- 
dent y  of  any  knowledge  of  things.     There  is  no  unreason  in 

wTth  2    ''°'''"'^«'  ^^  ^^""fi^  ''^''^^'  °r  not  it  is  conformable 

God^!h!.^»,'''''*n'  T"  °°  ^""^  ""'  ""^  ^^'■^t^'X'^  to  that  of 

Sr'and  to  \i"'  "  *'  '"PP"^  "  -on.ego  or 'besides, 

self   and  to  suppose  this,  not  as  an  unknown  reality  but  a*  an 

Idea  or  ground  of  all  things.  And  here  too,  I  believe  ^et 
right  in  the  mam.  I  do  not  look  just  now  at  the  theological 
aspect  of  the  question,  whether  he  conceives  the  nature  ofS 
nghtly  or  not :  but  what  I  understand  as  at  the  bottom  of  his 
view  IS  this  that  the  fact  of  our  existence,  as  thinking,  involves 
the  fact  of  the  existence  of  a  state  of  things  in  which  we  think, 
and  0/ which  we  and  our  thinking  are  a  part:  and  since  ou; 

SkInT""'"      '"t"''  ^"  '^''  ^*^*^  °^  things  is  ourselves 
thinking,  we  conceive  the  state  of  things  to  be  the  result  of 
thought,  and  call  the  thinking  Being.  God.     The  point  here  is 
that,  without  particularizing  to  the  extent  to  which  Descartes 
does,  we  have  here  too  a  fact  as  to  which  there  is  no  um-ealon 
in  justifying  knowledge  by  its  conformity  with  it.     TulTn 
ego  or  rather  circnm-ego,  that  to  which  we  belong,  or  of  which 
we  are  a  part,  or  in  obedience  to  which  we  think,  is  itself  a 
part  of  ourselves  and  is  a  fact  therefore  corresponding  with  the 
thmkmg :  and  since  the  knowledge  of  this  does  not  nfed  justifi! 
cation  other  knowledge  may  fairly  be  justified  by  it 

gJsZT"-"  ^'""u"  '^'''^'  ''  ""'='>  ''  ^'  does  about 
God  s  no    deceiving  us,   he  is  really,  though  in  special  and 

individual  language,  dealing  with  the  roots  of  knowledge  in  a 

manner  which  most  philosophers  after  him   have  neLcted 

God,  says  Descartes  in  effect,  is  the  Author  of  fact  as  well  as  of 

3—2 


36 


WHAT   IS    KNOWLEDGE?      HOW  ANSWERED  BY       [CHAP. 


III.] 


LOCKE,   COUSIN,   BERKELEY,  DESCARTES. 


37 


mind ;  and  since  he  has  made  us  to  think  that  there  exists  fact 
corresponding  to  the  manner  in  which  we  cannot  help  thinking, 
we  may  be  sure  he  would  not  deceive  us ;  and  therefore  such 
fact  does  exist.     It  seems  to  me  obvious,  that  all  that  is  called 
'intuitivism'  involves  as  a  basis,  not  indeed  necessarily  this, 
or  anything  in  words  like  it,  but  something  which  in  substance 
is  of  the  same  kind.     Any  universal  and  inevitable  thought 
of  the  human  race  and  of  each  man  (say  that  two  straight 
lines  will  not  enclose  a  space)  is  called  true,  not  in  virtue  of  its 
being  such  an  universal  and  inevitable  thought  (supposing  it  to 
be  so),  but  because  we  believe  that  a  thought  of  this  character 
would  not  exist  without   there  being   reason   in  fact   for  its 
existing :  and  it  is  this  supposition  of  the  previous  existence  of 
fact  in  conformity  with  the  thought,  and  supplying  one  portion 
of  the  reason  for  the  existence  of  the  thought,  which  makes  us 
call   the   thought,   not   imagination,  but    knowledge.     Where 
Hume  says,  in  effect,  that  what  we  call  knowledge  is  thought 
in  conformity  with  human  ciistom,  Cousin,  blaming  Locke  for 
saying  that  knowledge  is  thought  (*  ideas ')  in  conformity  with 
fact,  says  in  effect  that  knowledge  is  thought   in  conformity 
with  human  nature.     Both  of  these  are  characters  of  knowledge, 
but  the  Lockian  seems  to  me  the  more  important  and  intimate 
of  the  two,  and  the  latter  only  to  be  a  real  character  of  know- 
ledge in  so  far  as  it  is  virtually  included  in  the  other.     What 
security  have  we  that  our  humanly  natural  thought  is  not  a 
sort  of  generically  private  or  individual  imagination  (as  in  fact 
some  relativists  go  far  to  think  it),  except  our  feeling  that  we 
with  our  thinking  are  a  part  of  a  constituted,  harmonious,  self- 
consistent,  God-created  universe  ? 

Descartes'  view  may  be  said  to  include  Berkeley's,  involving 
all  that  Berkeley  has  said  on  the  question  of  the  existence  of 
material  things,  only  that  Descartes  goes  much  deeper  and 
wider,  and  is  so  far  more  correct.  In  spite  of  the  evident 
sincerity  of  Descartes,  I  am  not  sure  how  far  we  are  able  to 
gather  his  real  feeling,  on  account  of  the  constraint  under 
which  he,  as  well  as  many  other  philosophers,  wrote,  and  which 
then  could  hardly  be  avoided.  But  still  to  me,  there  appears 
to  be  in  him  what  I  should  call  a  seriousness,  that  is  a  freedom 


from   affectation  and   from   desire   of  paradox,  a  thinking  of 
truth  alone,  which  exists  perhaps  equally  in  Locke,  but  does 
not  seem  similarly  to  belong  to  Berkeley  and  Hume.     Nobody 
doubts  whether  Locke,  and  whether  Descartes  at  the  bottom,  is 
in  earnest.     They  both  of  them  probe  things  to  the  depth  to 
which  their  line  will  go:  Berkeley  and  Hume  do  not  care  to  do 
so.     Hume  is  content  to  leave  knowledge  as  customary  thought, 
without  any  care  to  examine  the  nature  of  this  custom.     In  the 
same  way  Berkeley  sees  no  difficulty,  and  nothing  requiring 
further  probing,  in  the  consideration  that  two  notions,  both  of 
which  may  fairly  be  called  natural,  in  so  far  as  actual  human 
thought  indicates  human  nature— the  vulgar  notion,  namely,  of 
the  independent  existence  of  the  external  world  as  we  perceive 
it,  and  the  philosophic  notion  of  the  independent  existence  of  an 
unknown  substance  underlying  what  we  properly  perceive— that 
these  two  apparently  natural  notions  are  prejudices  only  and  not 
correct ;  while  what  is  correct  is  something  which  the  natural, 
habitual,  actual  thought  of  men  certainly  does  not  realize  at  all* 
viz.  that  our  thought  as  to  what  we  call  the  external  world  is  a 
quasirinspiration  of  the  Deity. 

I  am  not  disputing  Berkeley's  being  to  a  great  extent  right, 
which  I  believe  him  to  be :  my  point  only  is,  that  he  leaves  the 
question  where  no  philosopher  has  a  right  to  leave  it.  There 
exists  really,  says  Berkeley,  only  spirit,  the  Infinite  Spirit  and 
our  finite  spirits :  and  what  distinguishes  that  portion  of  our 
thought  which  is  knowledge  from  that  which  is  not,  is  that  the 
former  is  the  suggestion  to  us  of  the  Infinite  Spirit. 

Now  it  is  very  hard  to  say  what  the  natural,  or  habitual, 
or  actual,  thought  of  man  as  to  the  existence  of  the  external 
world  is,  and  I  doubt  whether  any  philosopher  (certainly  not 
Berkeley)  has  been  even  consistent  with  himself  in  his  attempts 
to  describe  it.  But  whatever  it  is,  it  seems  to  me  anyhow  that 
it  is  not  any  thought  or  supposition  of  this  Divine  suggestion, 
whether  this  latter  is  the  fact  or  not :  so  far  as  it  is  the  fact,' 
it  is  only  afterwards  that  it  is  thought  or  known  to  be  so! 
Human  thought  then  is  quietly  left  by  Berkeley  in  the  posi- 
tion, if  we  may  so  speak,  of  habitually  misunderstanding  itself, 
or  taking  itself  for  what  it  is  not :  or  to  use  language  more 


38 


WHAT  IS  KNOWLEDGE?   HOW  ANSWERED  BY   [CHAP. 


III.] 


LOCKE,  COUSIN,   BERKELEY,   DESCARTES. 


39 


like  Berkeley's  own,  and  that  of  Descartes  also,  Berkeley  sees 
nothing  remarkable  in  the  Divine  suggestion  being  the  fact  as 
to  our  minds,  but  not  marking  itself  to  them  as  the  fact  (except 
long  afterwards  and  as  a  philosophical  discovery);  so  that  we 
almost  inevitably  take  it  for  something  else,  viz.  for  a  supposed 
reality  in  things:  that  is,  in  fact,  it  results  to  us  in  illusion. 
This  may  perhaps  be  so :  if  we  conceive  the  matter  in  the 
latter  form,  we  undoubtedly,  in  spite  of  our  dependence  on  the 
Infinite  Mind,  mistake  in  many  things,  and  might  possibly  do 
so  in  fundamental  things.  If  we  conceive  the  matter  in  the 
first-mentioned  form,  that  human  thought  habitually  misunder- 
stands itself,  we  may  say,  Well,  perhaps  it  does :  and  so  we 
come  to  a  sort  of  '  regulativism ' :  our  habitual  or  inevitable 
thought  then,  though  free  from  illusion  so  far  as  it  serves  to 
guide  our  corporeal  action,  is  illusion  above  this  point,  i.e.  it 
represents  to  us  something  about  which  we  cannot  help  thinking 
in  a  way  in  which  nevertheless  we  know  (by  philosophy  or 
otherwise)  we  ought  not  to  think.  Or  on  the  other  hand  we 
may  say,  we  ought  to  think  that  the  material  world  exists 
independently,  because  it  is  our  nature  so  to  think,  and  yet  we 
ought  not  to  think  so,  because  the  fact  is  otherwise. 

Berkeley,  satisfied  with  bringing  vigorously  out  the  contrast 
between  human  habitual  thought  (or  prejudice)  and  the  real 
fact  or  truth,  leaves  the  matter  here :  but  Descartes  is  not 
satisfied  to  do  so.  Were  it  simply  so,  he  says,  this  would  be  a 
deceiving  of  man  by  God.  If  God  has  made  me  to  think,  and 
not  to  be  able  to  help  thinking,  that  the  material  world  exists 
independently  of  my  perceiving  it,  and  in  the  same  way  and 
for  the  same  reason,  independently  of  anyone's  perceiving  it, 
then  it  does  so  exist,  or  God  is  deceiving  me.  Descartes  is 
certainly  right  in  not  leaving  human  thought  as  Berkeley  does, 
but  sounding  deeper,  though  the  theological  language  is  not  a 
necessary  part  of  the  view  here  taken.  The  thing  may  be  put 
thus:  rightness  or  correctness  is  one  and  the  same  for  all 
knowledge,  low  or  high,  rudimentary  or  far  advanced :  if  we 
know  anything,  whatever  it  is,  i.e.  think  about  it  correctly,  that 
step  of  knowledge  is  good  for  all  possible  progress  of  knowledge, 
and  true  in  the  face  of  the  universe.    We  may  come  to  find  that 


our  supposed  past  knowledge  was  wrong,  or  we  may  come  to 
find  it  absorbed  and  taken  up  in  more  expanded  knowledge : 
but  we  shall  not  come  to  find  that  knowledge  itself  is  some- 
thing different  from  what  it  was  when  we  began  to  know,  in 
such  a  way  that  what  was  once  good  knowledge  is  now  good  no 
longer.     Nothing  is  more  possible  (in  fact  I  have  no  doubt  but 
that   it  is  true)  than  that  all  our  real  knowledge  is  Divine 
suggestion,  a  sort  of  mediate  inspiration.     But  if  we  think  (or 
apparently  know),  as  a  part  of  our  process  of  knowing,  that  the 
mediation  of  this  suggestion  is  what  we  call  external  things, 
having  a  reality  of  their  own,  independent  of  the  perception  of 
them,  then  the  Divine  suggestion  is  in  fact  equivalent  to  what 
we  understand  by  creation,  as  Descartes  regarded  it.     As  I 
have  said,  what  exactly  we  do  think  as  to  this  is  hard  to  say : 
but  we  certainly  do  not  think  that  the  relation  of  what  we  call 
material  things  to  something  which  is  not  material,  is  at  all 
analogous  to  the  relation  which  the  words  of  a  language  bear 
to   what   they   signify.      Things  are   themselves,   or   they  are 
nothing :  if  they  are  God's  words  to  us,  as  there  is  no  harm  in 
considiering  them,  they  are  this  in  virtue  of  their  being  things, 
and  we  come  most  to  enter  into  the  meaning  of  them  as  God's 
words  by  the  most  thoroughly  considering  them  as  things,  in 
the  sense  in  which  our  mind  or  nature  leads  us  to  view  things. 
On   the   other   hand  if,  and  so  far  as,  our  view  of  reality  as 
a  Divine  suggestion,  or  our  view  of  things  as  dependent  for 
their  reality  on  being  perceived,  leads  us  to  alter  our  view  of 
them  as  things  (upon  which  view  we  talk  with  others  and  act), 
to  that  extent  it  is  wrong.     But  where  the  thought  of  such 
Divine  suggestion  leaves  our  view  of  things  unaltered,  there 
is   no    paradox,   no    supplantation    of   one   view    by   another, 
no  point  in  saying,  that  what  the  vulgar  have  conceived  as 
things,   the   wise    conceives    as   a  language,  i.e.   as    signs   of 
things.     Berkeley's   favourite   metaphor   of   language   is   here 
singularly  unhappy.     Though  there  is  no  harm  in  calling  the 
external  world  a  language  of  God  to  us,  there  is  no  good  in 
doing  so,  if  we  stop  where  Berkeley  stops,  for  it  is  a  language 
entirely  unknown  to  us.     We  have  the  letters  and  words,  and 
are  told  they  are  signs :  but  how  are  we  to  find  out  of  what  ? 


40 


WHAT  IS   KNOWLEDGE?      HOW   ANSWERED  BY       [CHAP. 


We  perversely  think  the  letters  and  words  the  things,  and  then 
we  are  told  they  are  not  so,  but  we  are  not  told  what  it  is  of 
which  they  are  signs,  so  that  we  are  left  without  things  at  all, 
only  with  a  language  telling  us  nothing.  Berkeley  was  led 
probably  to  this  error,  as  I  suppose  it  will  be  allowed  to  be, 
by  his  Theory  of  Vision,  where  the  metaphor  of  language  had 
a  little  more  reason  in  it  than  it  has  here,  though  still  not 
much. 

In  speaking  of  Descartes  being  right  at  the  bottom,  I 
mean  expressly  to  imply  that  I  do  not  think  he  is  right  as 
he  proceeds. 

If  we  really  wish  to  do  what  Descartes  wished  to  do,  i.e. 
make  ourselves  infants  in  knowledge  in  order  to  have  our 
knowledge  thoroughly  tested  and  put  in  a  better  method,  we 
have  got  to  strip  ourselves  of  more  than  our  actual  knowledge 
of  any  kind :  we  have  got  to  unlearn  or  unthink  our  manner 
of  thinking:  and  this  is  what  of  course  is  hardly  possible. 
Descartes  was  mathematically  trained  and  minded.  His  notion 
of  certainty  was  what  we  may  call  a  sort  of  geometrical  intuition 
of  fact  in  a  particular  form,  and  seen  reason  for  its  being  in 
that  form — the  coup  d'oeil  or  comprehension  of  demonstration 
and  conclusion  in  one — so  as  at  once  to  exclude  contrary 
supposition.  This  was  the  manner  in  w^hich  he  had  been  in 
the  habit  of  looking  on  certainty — demonstration,  but  demon- 
stration lost  in  a  manner  and  absorbed  in  the  mental  view,  in 
the  now  intuitive  force  of  the  thing  understood  to  be  known. 
It  was  from  this  habitual  conception  of  certainty,  it  is  to  be 
supposed,  that  he  drew  his  notion  of  clear  and  distinct  ideas. 
We  are  certain  of  a  thing,  he  says,  when  we  have  a  clear  and 
distinct  idea  of  it.  The  language  follows  servilely  on  the  sense 
of  sight,  in  spite  of  Descartes'  constant  care  to  distinguish 
mental  intuition  from  quasi- visual  imagination.  By  'clear* 
he  means  with  plenty  of  light  upon  the  idea,  so  that  it  is  not 
dim  or  obscure :  by  '  distinct  *  he  means  standing  out  in  bold 
relief,  so  that  there  is  no  difficulty  in  distinguishing  one  idea 
from  other  ideas,  and  no  confusing  it  with  them. 

I  mentioned  a  short  time  since  the  peculiar  character,  in 
the  point  of  view  of  knowledge,  of  the  fact  of  our  own  existence 


III.] 


LOCKE,   COUSIN,  BERKELEY,   DESCARTES. 


41 


as  thinking,  perhaps  also  of  the  existence  of  the  ideal,  God  or 
the  universe,  on  which  we  depend.  If  the  word  consciousness 
is  to  be  used,  we  should  have  been  wise  to  use  it  only  in  relation 
to  the  former  of  these  facts,  applying  it  only  to  that  self-know- 
ledge, so  to  speak,  or  rather  self-presence,  self-companionship, 
carrying  ourself  with  our  thought,  which  is  involved  in 
thinking,  and  is  quite  independent  of  anything  which  we  think, 
of  any  object  of  thought,  even  of  our  own  distinctly  contem- 
plated selves.  Both  Descartes  however,  without  using  the  word 
consciousness,  and  a  whole  line  of  philosophers  after  him, 
using  it,  proceed  in  substance  differently.  He  joined  with  the 
*  Cogito  ergo  sum '  a  conclusion  of  as  much  philosophic  bearing 
as  that,  but  not  equally  true,  viz.  *I  judge  this  conclusion  to 
be  true  only  because  I  clearly  see  it  to  be  so :  therefore  clear 
mental  sight  is  the  test  of  truth.'  Here  we  have  the  gate 
opened  to  the  endless  misuse  of  the  term  consciousness,  or 
similar  terms,  on  the  part  of  the  line  of  philosophers  of  whom 
I  have  spoken:  here  we  have  Descartes'  scepticism  resulting 
in  a  bold  individualist  dogmatism.  In  Descartes'  mathe- 
matical intuitions,  it  had  not  been  the  clear  mental  sight, 
but  the  demonstration  which  it,  so  to  speak,  looked  through, 
which  had  been  the  real  condition  of  the  truth :  and  the  clear 
mental  sight  had  only  been  the  frame  of  mind  which  the 
demonstration  was  calculated  to  produce,  but  which,  or  some- 
thing undistinguishable  from  it,  might  exist  without  the 
demonstration,  being  then  really  deceptive.  In  Descartes'  notion 
of  clear  mental  sight  being  the  test  of  truth,  there  is  involved 
an  exceedingly  abstract  form  of  that  same  error  which,  in  its 
gross  and  concrete  form,  makes  mis-psychology.  In  order  to  be 
sure  that  what  w^e  mentally  see  is  not  hallucination  on  our  part, 
what  we  want  to  be  made  certain  of  is  that  there  is  something 
to  see  (or  rather  to  be  seen) ;  and  any  amount  of  clearness  or 
distinctness  in  our  view  will  not  alter  the  possibility  of  halluci- 
nation unless  we  are  made  certain  of  this.  That  this  is  not 
mere  words,  is  evident  from  the  applications  which  have  been 
made,  and  which  even  Descartes  himself  made,  of  his  own  view 
in  this  particular.  If  what  we  seem  to  see  with  the  greatest 
clearness  and  distinctness  generally  turns  out  to  be  reality. 


42 


WHAT   IS   KNOWLEDGE? 


[chap.  III. 


it  is  SO  because  reality  possesses  a  quality  which  makes  it 
thus  present  itself,  in  a  manner  diflferent  from  what  is  not 
reality;  and  it  is  this  quality  which  we  should  try  to  find. 
Otherwise  the  saying  that  what  we  see  clearly  must  be  true, 
is  merely  a  laying  claim  to  the  privilege  of  dispensation  from 
proof. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

MILL   AND    LOCKE   ON   OUR   KNOWLEDGE   OF   THE 

EXTERNAL    WORLD. 

Let  us  compare  for  a  moment  Mr  Mill's  view  with  that 
of  Locke. 

When  our  senses  are  conversant  with  external  objects,  says 
Locke,  we  receive  from  them  passively  simple  ideas,  as  of 
smells,  tastes,  colours,  also  of  space,  magnitude,  form.  (This  is 
pure  sensation  or  impression.)  These  we  actively  put  together 
(we  may  say  by  imagination)  into  complex  ideas,  viz.  '  modes,' 
which  in  point  of  fact  are  thoughts  about  external  objects,  not 
purporting  to  have  any  such  objects  actually  corresponding  to 
them ;  ideas  of  the  relation  of  one  idea  or  object  to  another ; 
and  ideas  of  substances,  the  formation  of  which  ideas  is  really 
the  reproduction  or  re-creation,  by  the  mind  and  as  idea,  of 
those  external  objects  with  which  the  senses  were  supposed  at 
first  conversant. 

It  is  not  my  purpose  now  to  dwell  on  the  circularity^  of 
this,  which  is  what  I  have  several  times  noticed  as  the  bad 
psychology.     I  am  to  compare  the  view  with  that  of  Mr  Mill. 

We  have,  says  Mr  Mill  (in  place  of  the  unmeaning  or 
doubtful  account  of  what  takes  place,  with  which  Locke  begins), 
however  arising  and  whencesoever  derived,  particular  sensations, 
which  we  describe  as  seeing  something  bright,  e.g.  a  colour, 
hearing  a  voice,  smelling  a  perfume,  &c.  Sensation  is  followed 
by  imagination,  which  suggests  possibilities  of  the  presence 

1  Ex]pL  162. 


44 


MILL  AND  LOCKE  ON 


[chap. 


of  the  past  sensations  in  every  variety  of  combination :  hence- 
forward our  actual  sensation  is  always  accompanied  by  a 
vast  amount  of  imagination  of  this  possibility  of  it :  it  is  this 
possibility  of  sensation  by  us  which  we  mean,  when  we  speak 
of  the  universe,  things,  external  objects, — more  or  less  con- 
cretifying  it. 

It  will  be  seen  that,  where  Locke  speaks  of  the  previous 
independent  existence  of  external  objects,  and  of  two  processes 
or  facts,  first  the  conversance  of  our  senses  with  these,  and  then 
the  reception  by  us  of  ideas,  Mr  Mill  speaks  of  no  such  previous 
independent  existence,  and  only  of  one  process  or  fact,  our 
sensation  or  impression. 

Both  he  and  Locke  may  be  considered  to  say  (putting  the 
matter  a  little  exaggeratedly  for  the  moment,  for  better  under- 
standing) that  we  passively  experience  particular  sensations, 
and  then  at  their  suggestion  actively  create  by  imagination 
what  we  call  the  external  world  or  universe  :  for  our  idea  of  the 
universe  is  the  sum  or  mass  of  our  ideas  of  substances. 

Locke  must  be  conceived,  I  suppose,  to  make  two  bases  of 
reality:  a  real  substance  of  things,  which  we  cannot  reach, 
though  we  think  we  do,  reaching  in  reality  their  qualities 
only,  (so  that  in  this  view  we  have  an  idea  of  things,  which  is 
true  but  inadequate),  and  next  a  ground  of  sensation,  viz.  his 
'objects  with  which  the  senses  are  convei-sant.'  From  these 
objects  or  this  ground  proceed,  with  passiveness  on  our  part, 
our  simple  ideas.  In  them  there  can  be  no  deception,  since 
there  is  simple  passiveness.  The  ideas  by  hypothesis  come 
from  the  objects,  and  in  their  coming  from  the  objects  is  all 
the  truth  they  are  capable  of:  unless  indeed  we  suppose 
the  objects  inclined  to  deceive  us,  in  which  case  we  have  the 
further  guarantee,  that  the  Deity  who  made  them  would  not 
allow  them  to  do  so. 

Locke  says  thus  in  efifect,  that  the  universe  of  things,  as  we 
conceive  things  in  virtue  of  our  complex  ideas  of  substances, 
is  what  Mr  Mill  calls  a  mass  of  possibilities  of  sensation, 
what  Locke  calls  a  collection  of  powers  to  produce  in  us  certain 
sensations:  we  superadd  to  these  from  ourselves  the  half- 
illusory,  or  at  least  ill-understood,  idea  of  substance,  as  with 


IV.]  OUR  KNOWLEDGE   OF  THE    EXTERNAL  WORLD.  45 

Mr  Mill  we  do  that  of  reality.     But  sensation  is  a  different 
thing  with  Locke  and  with  Mr  Mill.     While  both  assume  it  as 
fact,   it   has   with  the  former,  illogically,  two  characters,   the 
necessary  union  of  which  in  any  real  fact  he  does  not  even 
attempt  to  show :  viz.  the  character  of  being  a  special  feeling 
or  consciousness  in  us,  and  the  character  on  the  other  side  of 
proceeding    from    actually  existing    objects.     Mr  Mill,    more 
logically,  treats  sensation  as  being  on  the  whole  defined  and 
determined  by  the  former  character.     Only,  with  Mr  Mill,  there 
is  no  certainty  that  the  sensations  which  suggest  our  concep- 
tions of  things  are  any  way  derived  from  things :  so  that  we  are 
cut  off  from  things  altogether :  all  may  be  imagination.     Locke 
will  have  his  sensations  derived  from  things:  but  the  wrong 
logic  in  this  is  so  flagrant,  that  even  he  is  several  times  obliged 
to  speak  the  language  of  Berkeley. 

Locke's  view  of  human  impression  must  be  taken  to  be, 
that  somehow  or  other  we   are  aware,  to  start  with,  of  the 
existence,  both  sensible  and  substantial,  of  external  things; 
since  in  the  case  of  the  sensation  which  supplies  us  with  the 
first  simple  idea,  we  are  aware  that  there  is  an  actually  existing 
external  thing  from  which  it  comes ;  and  since,  when  the  mind 
begins  to  be  active  and  to  form  complex  ideas  or  ideas  of  things 
with  various  properties,  it  is  the  supposed   substance  of  the 
thing,  which  we  endeavour  to  make  out  however  unsuccessfully, 
and  short  of  the  idea  of  which  we  have  not  an  adequate  idea 
of  the  thing.     Though  however  we  are  thus  supposed  to  know 
at  the  beginning  that  there  are  things  sensibly  and  substan- 
tially existing,  how  far  do  we  really  know  the  things  beyond 
our  knowledge  of  this  fact  about  the  things  ?     Locke's  answer, 
in  respect  of  the  substance  or  supposed  true  reality  of  the 
things  is,  that  we  know  it  most  inadequately,  or  it  might  be 
said  not  at  all.     In  respect  of  their  sensible  reality,  or  such 
reality  as  may  be  conceived  involved  in  their  being  occasions 
of  sensations,  his  answer,  I  should  think,  must  be  odd.     Surely 
we  must  know  not  only  the  fact  of  the  existence  of  the  things, 
but  the  things  themselves  in  that  process  which  is  described  as 
'our  senses  being  conversant  with  external  objects':  but  we 
have  to  begin  again  with  the  reception,  first,  from  the  objects, 


46 


MILL  AND  LOCKE   ON 


[chap. 


of  simple  ideas,  from  which  we  go  on,  next,  to  the  putting  the 
simple  ideas  together  and  the  mental  making  of  the  objects,  as 
if  they  did  not  exist,  and  had  not,  by  the  hypothesis,  been 
acting  upon  us  all  the  time.  This  conversion  of  what  is  really 
one  process  into  two  by  looking  at  it  from  the  two  ends  is  what 
I  liave  all  along  condemned  as  the  bad  psychology*.  Locke 
would,  I  suppose,  answer,  that  we  have  a  sort  of  knowledge 
of  the  objects  from  the  beginning,  and  then,  superadded  to  this, 
the  gradual  knowledge  of  growing  experience  or  the  reception 
of  ideas  from  things,  and  of  such  imagination,  or  formation 
of  ideas  about  things,  as  can  justify  itself  in  any  way  to  be 
right  and  truth. 

This   sort    of   double   view  of   knowledge    seems    to    me 
right   or  wrong  according  to  the  way  in  which  we  take   it. 
It  is  little  diiferent  from  Sir   William  Hamilton's  conscious- 
ness of  matter.     We  are  prepared,  so  to  speak,  for  the  first 
particular  sensation    which   we    actually   experience,    by   the 
knowledge   that   there   are   external  objects  from   which   the 
sensations  come,  or  may  come.     Unless  we  have  the  previous 
knowledge  that  there  are  such  objects,  what  possibly  can  make 
us  in  the  first  instance  think  that  the  sensation,  which  is  itself 
but  a  feeling,  comes  from  them  ?     But  what  is  the  nature  of 
this  knowledge  or  preparedness  ?     Is  it  a  first  gigantic  general 
experience,  rendering  possible  all   following  particular  expe- 
rience ?     If  it  is,  the  word  '  experience '  must  not  carry  in  it 
the  notion  of  *  experience  as  fact,'  '  experience  of  a  thing  as 
fact,'  for  that  means  the  reference  of  something  to  understood 
existing  fact,  and  here  there  is  nothing  to  refer  to.     Experience 
is   part   of  a   course,  and   here   there   is   nothing  precedent. 
Experience  is  knowledge  by  trial,  with  a  conceivable  alterna- 
tive :  and  here  there  is  neither  trial  nor  conceivable  alternative. 
Experience  therefore  must  mean  here  only  change  of  feeling, 
Tnental  experience,  possibly  therefore  imagination  only,  if  we 
conceive  that,  without  an  understood  cause  ab  extra,  a  supposi- 
tion or  conception  can  be  nothing  more  than  mere  imagination. 
The  knowledge  then  of  there  being  external  objects  would  be 

1  Exjpl.  73, 192. 


IV.] 


OUR  KNOWLEDGE  OF  THE   EXTERNAL  WORLD. 


47 


a  sort  of  notio  princeps,  not  caused  by  the  external  objects. 
Locke  would  have  to  say,  our  mental  history  is  fii*st  that  of  a 
purely  mental  experience  suggesting  to  us  that  there  is  fact 
independent  of  us,  and  then  of  an  experience  at  once  mental 
and  (so  to  speak)  experimental,  by  which  we  come  gradually  to 
know  all  the  particulars  of  the  fact  thus  anticipated. 

Otherwise  the  knowledge  which  Locke  supposes  us  to  have 
of  the  existence  of  objects,  or  of  an  external  world,  must  be  a 
gigantic  innate  idea :  and  in  expelling  from  the  mind  one  kind 
of  innate  ideas,  he  only  introduces  an  opposite. 

So  far  as  we  can  divest  Locke's  view  of  the  bad  psychology, 
and  still  call  it  his  view,  he  seems  to  me  (and  the  same  as  to 
the  substantial  reality  of  things),  to  be  right  or  wrong  according 
as  we  understand  him.  The  substance  or  *thinghood*'  of  a 
thing  I  look  upon  as  a  reality,  or  as  a  notion  with  important 
meaning,  but  I  look  upon  it  as  involved  in  the  qualities  of  the 
thing,  not  as  distinct  from  them  and  underlying  them.  For 
the  sake  of  convenience  we  assume  as  underlying  the  things  a 
supposed  substance,  which  is  the  logical  subject  when  the  thing 
is  spoken  of,  and  which  really  is  the  supposition  of  the  sum 
of  the  qualities  of  the  thing,  known  and  unknown,  with  the 
added  notion  of  relative  importance  among  them.  Against  this 
stands  the  view,  whether  in  scholastic  or  quasi-Kantian  form, 
of  there  being  a  substantial  reality  of  the  thing  independent 
of  its  qualities  or  phenomena,  which  is  the  thing  in  itself,  what 
we  know  to  exist,  but  can  form  no  conception  of.  To  which 
of  these  views  of  substance  does  Locke  incline  ? 

The  kind  of  previous  knowledge  of  external  things  which 
he  must  suppose  in  us  is  an  idea  of  their  sensible  and 
substantial  reality  together.  The  senses  are  conversant  with 
external  objects,  i.e.  not  merely  with  the  external  universe,  but 
with  individualized  portions  of  it.  This,  in  the  mis-psychological 
interpretation,  is  really  that  we  know  in  fact  more,  before  we 
begin  to  learn,  than  we  ever  can  afterwards  succeed  in  learning. 
Divesting  the  view  as  far  as  possible  of  the  mis-psychology,  we 
must  consider  the  first  knowledge  a  sort  of  obscure  sketch  or 


1  Expl  pp.  106,  123,  &c. 


48 


MILL  AND  LOCKE   ON 


[chap. 


anticipation  of  what  is  to  come  afterwards.  Supposing  we  had 
no  eyelids,  but  our  eyes  were  always  open  like  our  ears,  and 
that  our  waking  to  sight  was  the  gradual  distinctifying  of 
itself  by  the  prospect  before  them ;  we  should  see  the  whole 
field  of  view  in  the  first  look  as  well  as  in  the  hundredth.  In 
a  similar  manner  our  knowledge  is  in  a  sense  always  the  same  : 
it  is  virtually  contained  in  our  intelligence,  and  might  be 
predicted  from  that:  and  what  might  be  predicted  from  the 
study  of  our  particular  intelligence  and  constitution  by  an 
outsider,  it  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that  we  from  within  our 
intelligence  might  anticipate  by  an  obscure  consciousness.  The 
eye  in  a  way  sees,  though  it  sees  nothing,  the  ear  in  a  way 
hears,  though  it  hears  nothing :  and  so  our  intelligence,  in  its 
looking  and  listening,  before  knowledge  is  actually  presented 
to  it,  may  be  said,  in  its  particular  faculties  and  the  disposition 
to  use  them,  to  forecast  its  after  knowledge.  This,  as  I 
understand  it,  is  one  of  the  points  of  Kantism :  our  mind  is 
ready  for  the  knowledge  that  is  coming:  it  is  furnished,  and 
we  can  describe  its  furniture,  but  its  furniture  is  only  applicable 
to  that  knowledge,  and  we  misapply  it  if  we  try  to  apply  it 
otherwise.  We  have  got,  for  instance,  in  our  minds  space,  i.e. 
the  disposition  to  spatial  conception,  as  a  frame  of  the  imiverse 
that  is  coming,  so  that  we  have  a  sort  of  anticipation  of  it,  and 
yet  this  anticipation  is  nothing  in  itself,  nothing  except  as 
applied  to  what  it  is  meant  to  be  applied  to.  Locke,  in  that 
previous  knowledge  (so  to  call  it)  that  there  are  things  and  an 
universe,  which  he  implies  to  exist  before  there  are  separate 
and  distinct  ideas  of  the  things,  may  mean  a  kind  of  anticipation, 
something  like  the  Kantian  spatial  thought.  This  is  correct, 
at  least  in  so  far  as  that  the  supposing  our  knowledge  to  come 
item  by  item,  particular  by  particular,  is  one  way  of  putting 
the  fact,  which  requires  to  be  supplemented  by  something 
further,  viz.  the  consideration,  what  it  is  in  us  and  in  the 
universe  that  makes  our  knowledge  come  in  this  succession, 
history,  and  order.  If  we  choose  to  rest  in  this  latter  as  the 
ultimate  fact  that  we  can  arrive  at,  well  and  good :  only  the 
proceeding  is  arbitrary  on  our  part.  If  we  say,  the  succession 
has  been  what  it  is,  because  our  mind  and  the  universe  have 


IV.]  OUR   KNOWLEDGE   OF  THE   EXTERNAL  WORLD. 


49 


been  what  they  are,  then,  in  so  far  as  we  know  in  any  degree 
what  our  mind  is,  and  what  sort  of  relation  it  bears  to  the 
universe,  we  know  what  is  coming.  Each  thought  of  ours  has, 
in  a  way,  our  whole  mind  and  the  whole  universe  in  it:  it 
would  not  be  what  it  is,  unless  they  were  what  they  are. 

So  much  then  (rather  desultorily)  for  Locke's  notion  of  the 
meaning  of  human  impression,  and  my  notion  of  the  value  of 
it,  supposing  it  to  be  to  the  effect  that  he  describes.  As  to 
his  own  notion  of  the  value  of  it,  he  speaks,  as  a  wrong 
psychologist,  with  a  double  voice,  knowing  the  existence  of 
things  himself,  while  he  discusses  how  we  come  to  know  them ; 
or,  which  is  the  same  thing,  he  knows  that  impressions  come 
from  existing  objects,  and  therefore  of  course  are  true  and 
valuable ;  while  with  regard  to  substances,  his  view  is  that  we 
know  they  exist,  and  we  know  we  cannot  reach  them,  so  that 
human  impression  is  not  valuable. 


^i^ 


---•*-'^-"*-^ 


CHAPTEE  V. 

HUME  ON   THE   ORIGIN    OF   IDEAS. 

AND   IMAGINATION. 


IMPRESSION 


I  AM  going,  in  the  present  chapter,  to  use  the  three  words 
impression ^  imagination,  idea,  in  a  peculiar  and  technical  sense, 
which  I  shall  carefully  define  in  the  case  of  each,  and  to  which 
I  do  not  know  that  I  shall  adhere  in  other  chapters,  but  which 
seems  to  me  of  importance  in  reference  to  the  question  I  am 
now  about  to  discuss. 

I  am  not  going  to  criticize  in  detail  the  passage  which  I 
give  below  from  Hume's  Inquiry  concerning  the  Human  Under- 
standing^, but  I  have  thought  it  convenient  to  quote  it  all, 
for  two  reasons:  first  because  Hume  exactlv  defines  the  term 
'  impression '  here  in  the  sense  in  which  I  shall  use  it  in  this 
chapter,  with  one  most  important  qualification,  which  I  proceed 
to  mention  under  the  second  reason,  viz.  because  I  want  the 
reader  to  watch  for  the  beginning  of  the  mixture  of  incongruous 
notions,  or  what  I  have  called  the  bad  psychology. 

1.  Everyone  will  readily  allow  that  there  is  a  considerable  difference 
between  the  perceptions  of  the  mind,  when  a  man  feels  the  pain  of 
excessive  heat,  or  the  pleasm-e  of  moderate  warmth  ;  and  when  he  after- 
wards recalls  to  his  memory  this  sensation,  or  anticipates  it  by  his 
imagination.  These  faculties  may  mimic  or  copy  the  perceptions  of  the 
senses ;  but  they  never  can  entirely  reach  the  force  and  vivacity  of  the 
original  sentiment.  The  utmost  we  say  of  them,  even  when  they  operate 
with  the  greatest  vigour,  is  that  they  represent  their  object  in  so  lively  a 

'  See  later  view  in  Book  n.  on  Immediateness  and  Beflectioa. 
'  Section  ii.,  On  the  Origin  of  Ideal. 


CHAP,  v.]  HUME  ON  THE  ORIGIN  OF  IDEAS.  61 

manner,  that  we  could  almost  say  we  feel  or  see  it :  but  except  the  mind 
be  disordered  by  disease  or  madness,  they  never  can  arrive  at  such  a 
prtch  of  vivacity,  as  to  render  these  perceptions  altogether  undistinguish- 

2.  We  may  observe  a  like  distinction  to  run  through  all  the  other 
perceptions  of  the  mind.  A  man  in  a  fit  of  anger  is  actuated  in  a  very 
different  manner  from  one  who  only  thinks  of  that  emotion.  If  you  tell 
me  that  any  person  is  in  love,  I  easily  underatand  your  meaning  and  form 
a  just  conception  of  his  situation  ;  but  never  can  mistake  that  conception 
for  the  real  disorders  and  agitations  of  the  passion.  When  we  reflect  on 
our  past  sentiments  and  aflections,  our  thought  is  a  faithfiU  mirror  and 
copies  Its  objects  truly ;  but  the  colom«  which  it  employs  are  faint  and 
clothJ."  T^'''""  ''^  t''"^  '°  '^Wch  our  original  perceptions  were 

tv,.  ^    ;•     .  T""^  "°  "'**  discernment  or  metephysical  head  to  mark 
the  distinction  between  them. 

3.    Here  therefore  we  may  divide  aU  the  perceptions  of  the  mind  into 
two  classes  or  species,  which  are  distinguished  by  their  different  degrees  of 
force  and  vivacity.    The  less  forcible  and  lively  aw  commonly  denomi- 
nated 'thoughts'  or  'ideas.'    The  other  species  want  a  name  in  our 
language  and  in  most  others  ;  I  suppose,  because  it  was  not  requisite  for 
any  but  philosophical  purposes  to  rank  them  under  a  general  term  or 
appellation.     Let  us  therefore  use  a  little  freedom  and  call  them  '  Impres- 
sions ;   employing  that  word  in  a  sense  somewhat  different  from  the 
usual.     By  the  term  'impression,'  then,   I  mean  all  our  more  lively 
perceptions,  when  we  hear  or  see  or  feel  or  love  or  hate  or  desire  or  will 
And  impressions  are  distinguished  from  ideas,  which  are  the  less  lively 
perceptions  of  which  we  are  conscious  when  we  reflect  on  any  of  these 
sensations  or  movements  above  described. 

4.  Nothing,  at  first  view,  may  seem  more  unbounded  than  the  thought 
01  man  ;  which  not  only  escapes  all  human  power  and  authority,  but  is 
not  even  restrained  within  the  limits  of  nature  and  reality.  To  form 
monsters  and  join  incongruous  shapes  and  appearances,  costs  the  imagi- 
nation no  more  trouble  than  to  conceive  the  most  natuml  and  familiar 
objects.  And  while  the  body  is  confined  to  one  planet,  along  which  it 
creeps  with  pam  and  difficulty,  the  thought  can  in  an  instant  transport  us 
into  the  most  distant  regions  of  the  univet^,  or  even  beyond  the  univeme 
into  the  unbounded  chaos  where  nature  is  supposed  to  lie  in  total  con- 
fusion.   What  never  was  seen  or  heard  of  may  yet  be  conceived  ;  nor  is 

^ntrldktion  ^"^''  °^  *'"'"^''*'  ^'"'P'  '"''**  ™P"^  ^^  '*'*'°1"*« 

5  But  though  our  thought  seems  to  possess  this  unbounded  liberty 
we  shaU  find  upon  a  nearer  examination,  that  it  is  reaUy  confined  within 
very  narrew  limits,  and  that  all  this  creative  power  of  the  mind  amounts 
to  no  more  than  the  faculty  of  compounding,  transposing,  augmenting,  or 
dimmishmg  the  materials  afforded  us  by  the  senses  and   experience. 

4—2 


52 


HUME   ON  THE   ORIGIN   OF   IDEAS. 


[chap. 


When  we  think  of  a  golden  mountain,  we  only  join  two  consistent  ideas, 
gold  and  mountain,  with  which  we  were  formerly  acquainted.  A  virtuous 
horse  we  can  conceive  ;  because  from  our  own  feeling  we  can  conceive 
virtue ;  and  this  we  may  unite  to  the  figure  and  shape  of  a  horse,  which 
is  an  animal  familiar  to  us.  In  short  all  the  materials  of  thinking  are 
derived  either  from  our  outward  or  inward  sentiments  :  the  mixture  and 
composition  of  these  belongs  alone  to  the  mind  or  will :  or  to  express 
myself  in  philosophical  language,  all  our  ideas  or  more  feeble  perceptions 
are  copies  of  our  impressions  or  more  lively  ones. 

In  this  passage  the  bad  psychology  hints  itself  obscurely  in 
the  last  sentence  but  one  of  the  third  paragraph,  and  shows 
itself  fully  in  the  first  sentence  of  the  fifth.  The  former  I  will 
requote.  as  it  is  the  most  important  in  the  passage. 

By  the  term  impression'  I  mean  all  our  more  lively  perceptions, 
when  we  hear  or  see  or  feel  or  love  or  desire  or  will. 

The  reader  will  observe,  that  the  word  perception  is  used  in 
a  very  wide  application,  pretty  much  for  what  we  should  call 
'  feeling ' :  the  being  in  a  fit  of  anger  and  in  love  are  called  in 
the  second  paragraph  perceptions  of  the  mind.  Some  of  these 
perceptions,  which  are  more  lively  than  others,  are  called  by 
Hume  '  impressions,'  and  he  gives  a  specimen  list  of  them  :  by 
memory  or  imagination  these  perceptions,  or  copies  of  them, 
may  recur  to  the  mind  in  a  less  lively  form:  then  he  gives 
them  the  name  of '  ideas.' 

If  the  reader  will  look  carefully  at  Hume  s  list,  he  will  see 
that  he  must  for  the  present  discard,  from  the  meaning  of 
'  impression,'  the  notion  of  there  being  something  independent 
of  us  impressing  us.  There  may  be :  but  the  word '  impression,' 
as  here  used  does  not  involve  it.  There  is  undoubtedly  an 
object,  a  content,  of  the  impression :  but  the  important  point 
is,  that  the  existence  of  this  is  given  us  by  the  impression,  and 
is  not  independent  of  it. 

For  the  word  *  impression,'  as  Hume  uses  it  here,  it  is  more 
common  in  modern  philosophy  to  use  the  word  *  presentation.' 
When  we  speak  of  love  and  hate  being  '  presentations,'  it  is  of 
course  clear  that  the  word  '  presentation '  can  contain  no  more 
notion  of  something  independent  presented  to  the  mind,  than 
the  word  impression  does  of  something  impressing  it. 


v.] 


IMPRESSION   AND   IMAGINATION. 


53 


Hume's  definition  of  'impressions'  must  be  considered  to 
finish  with  the  first  clause  of  the  sentence,  for  it  is  clear  that 
he  does  not  mean  that,  if  we  hear  obscurely  or  desire  feebly,  it 
is  not  an  impression.  But  it  is  clear  also,  that  the  more  or 
less  of  liveliness  is  not  a  sufficient  distinction  between  an 
'impression,'  such  as  'seeing'  or  'desiring,'  and  what  Hume 
calls  an  idea,  namely,  the  imagination  of  a  prospect  or  the 
remembrance  that  we  have  desired.  The  'liveliness'  has  a 
peculiar  or  specific  character  about  it.  And  this  character  is 
well  suggested  to  us  by  the  term  'presentation,'  though  I  do 
not  use  that  term,  because  I  think  it  dangerously  suggestive  of 
error  also.  Where  there  is  an  impression,  it  is  a  part  of  the 
impression  that  there  is  an  object  of  it  present  to  us  in  some 
way  (we  shall  see  more  soon  about  this  term  '  present ')  or  in 
some  special  communication  or  relation  with  us.  So  far  as  it 
is  hard,  as  it  is,  to  realise  the  meaning  of 'object'  in  this  view 
applied  to  'desire,'  'will,'  &;c.,  I  think  this  only  shows  that 
the  term  'impression'  (or  'presentation')  is  not  very  happily 
applied  to  them. 

The  impressions  which  I  am  going  to  discuss  are  the 
intellectual  impressions,  of  which  Hume  has  mentioned  two, 
'seeing,'  and  'hearing';  and  that  the  reader  may  understand 
how  I  differ  from  him,  and  from  what  I  have  called  the  bad 
psychology,  I  will  ask  him  to  observe  the  diflference  of  his  pro- 
ceeding and  mine. 

Many,  when  they  read  the  list  which  Hume  has  given,  will 
say,  '  What  is  the  meaning  of  putting  thus  seeing  and  hearing 
by  the  side  of  loving  and  hating  ? '  When  we  see,  we  see  with 
eyes  an  actually  present  object,  as  we  hear  with  ears  an  actually 
sounding  sound :  but  when  we  love,  the  object  of  our  love  may 
be  here  or  anywhere :  he  or  she  is  only  mentally  an  object  of 
it :  again  the  particular  impression  of  love  to  a  person  is  only  a 
part  of  our  whole  feeling  or  impression,  which  includes  his 
existence,  his  being  what  we  think  him  to  be,  &c.  though  at  this 
moment  he  may  be  dead  for  all  we  know,  or  may  not  really 
possess  those  qualities  for  which  we  loved  him.  This  is  some- 
thing very  different  from  seeing  and  hearing  things  before  us. 

Hume  would  answer,  or  ought  to  answer.  You  must  re- 


54 


HUME  ON  THE  ORIGIN  OF  IDEAS. 


[chap. 

member  that  we  are  dealing  with  these  things  simply  as 
'impressions,'  i.e.  as  feelings  of  the  mind,  each  with  its  own 
particular  sort  of  liveliness:  we  will  observe  these  different 
sorts,  but  you  must  remember  that  they  are  each  one  a  feeling 
of  the  mind,  and  only  that.  Just  as  you  say  that  your  friend's 
existence,  and  his  being  what  you  think  him  to  be,  are  parts  of 
your  whole  impression  of  love  to  him  :  so,  when  we  are  talking 
of  impressions,  the  fact  of  your  having  eyes  (or  a  body)  at  all, 
and  the  fact  of  the  independent  existence  of  an  object  for  you 
to  see,  are  parts  (along  with  the  special  impression  that  you 
this  moment  see  it)  of  the  whole  impression  which  you  call 
seeing,  or  of  ideas  derived  from  former  impressions :  you  cannot 
really  go  beyond  impression.  If  you  are  not  now  beginning 
to  be  persuaded  that  you  have  eyes,  there  was  a  time  when 
you  began  it ;  this,  and  the  belief  that  there  are  objects  for 
you  to  see,  are  parts  of  your  persuasion ;  as  in  the  other  case 
that  your  friend  is  alive  and  virtuous.  I  will  say  nothing  now 
about  the  possible  erroneousness. 

So  Hume  ought  to  have  answered,  and  so  perhaps  he  would : 
but  his  manner  of  proceeding  is  not  distinct.  When,  in  the 
first  sentence  of  the  fifth  paragraph,  we  read  that, '  this  creative 
power  of  the  mind  amounts  to  no  more  than  the  faculty  of 
compounding,  transposing,  augmenting,  or  diminishing  the 
materials  afforded  us  by  the  senses  and  experience... all  the 
materials  of  thinking  are  derived  from  our  outward  or  inward 
sentiment,'  we  see  the  entrance  of  that  which  I  call  the  wrong 
psychology.  Suppose  that  in  these  impressions  the  mind  is 
not  creative  or  capricious:  we  want  then  to  determine  what 
are  the  laws  and  limitations  of  it :  but  we  travel  away  from  the 
notion  of  impressions  when  we  suppose  these  laws  and  limita- 
tions to  be  something  outward,  materials  afforded  us  by  our 
senses.  The  mind  certainly  does  what  in  the  first  instance 
seems  like  'creating';  for  conceiving,  beginning  to  feel^  is 
mental  origination  or  creation.  What  I  call  the  bad  psychology 
is  the  introducing  here  the  notion  about  the  materials,  which  is 
incongruous.  When  the  eye,  e.g,  (using  this  language)  first 
affords  us  materials,  this  very  fact,  which  we  thus  describe,  we 

^  Compare  above  p.  28. 


v.] 


IMPRESSION   AND   IMAGINATION. 


55 


may  also  describe  as  an  impression,  or  the  mind  creating,  in 
whatever  way  it  does  create.  It  is  therefore  absurd  to  say, 
as  Hume  does  here,  that  the  creative  power  of  the  mind  is 
only  the  faculty  of  compounding,  &c.  these  materials. 

The  reader  will  find  however  Hume's  main  line  of  thought 
clear  in  this  respect,  and  I  have  quoted  this  first  chapter 
because  I  should  like  him  to  continue  reading  the  others:  I 
shall  presently  discuss  the  account  which  Hume  gives  in  them 
of  the  nature  and  value  of  the  belief  attending  our  intellectual 
impressions  or  presentations. 

What  Hume,  in  the  passage  which  I  have  quoted,  calls 
'  ideas,'  I  shall  call  '  imaginations,'  because  I  shall  have  to  use 
the  word  *  idea '  for  that  which  is  common  both  to  the  '  impres- 
sions '  and  to  (my)  '  imaginations,'  which  in  fact  is  the  sense  in 
which  it  is  commonly  used  by  philosophers  of  the  last  century, 
Hume's  use  being  a  particular  limitation  of  it.  It  will  therefore 
express  occasionally  either  or  both  of  the  others,  and  we  shall 
have  occasion  for  its  doing  so. 

I  have  then  at  this  moment  an  impression  of  a  scene, 
whatever  it  may  be,  as  actually  before  me ;  the  objects  in  it 
tangible  and  what  I  call  both  real  and  really  present.  I  have 
perhaps  at  this  same  moment,  consistently  with  the  above,  an 
imagination  of  a  former  impression,  say  an  imagination  of  the 
Roman  Forum,  vividly  before  my  mind's  eye,  but  accompanied 
with  the  feeling  that  it  is  not  actually  before  me,  and  that  the 
objects  in  it,  though  tangible,  are  not  tangible  by  me  now, 
though  real,  are  not  really  present.  And  I  have  an  idea  of 
either  or  both,  of  the  trees  on  the  one  hand,  which  appear 
to  be  at  this  moment  before  me,  and  on  the  other  hand  of  the 
ruins  in  the  Forum,  which  I  remember  having  seen,  and 
repicture  to  myself  now. 

We  are  now  examining  the  consciousness  or  feeling,  and  we 
call  that  an  impression  where  we  have  the  feeling  (a  feeling 
quite  unmistakeable  for  any  other)  that  the  objects  are  actually 
and  tangibly  before  us;  and  that  an  imagination  where  the 
feeling  is  the  opposite  of  this,  viz.  that  the  objects  are  not 
actually  before  us  but  that  something  else  is,  or  would  be,  if 
we  were  under  any  impression  at  all. 


56 


HUME  ON  THE   ORIGIN  OF  IDEAS.  [CHAP.  V. 


All  our  actual  states  of  intellectual  feeling  are  mixtures  of 
impression  and  imagination  as  thus  described.  Each  fresh 
particular  impression  is  added  on  to  a  mass  of  remembered 
and  digested  impression,  which  would  come  under  the  above 
definition  of  imagination.  Similarly  each  imagination  is  formed 
upon  the  surface  of  a  mass  of  impression,  which  is  what  gives 
to  it  its  character  of  imagination.  I  call  the  mental  picture 
which  I  form  of  the  Roman  Forum  an  imagination,  because 
I  am  under  the  impression  that  I  am  sitting  in  my  own  house 
iu  England,  looking  out  upon  trees  and  whatever  it  may  be — 
not  the  Forum.  Our  conscious  being  is  a  vast  mass  of  con- 
tinuous sensation  or  impression,  to  which  new  impressions  and 
imaginations  are  every  moment  added  or  out  of  which  they 
grow,  in  the  same  way  as  our  advancing  knowledge  is  a  vast 
mass  of  continuous  mental  vision  or  imagination,  to  which  new 
impressions  and  imaginations  affix  themselves.  But  at  present 
where  there  is  fresh  impression,  I  shall  call  the  whole  *  im- 
pression,' though  there  is  so  much  involved  which  is  more 
properly  imagination,  and  the  same  for  imagination  the  other 
way.  For  imagination  is  only  old  impression,  and  impression 
would  be  entirely  barren  without  imagination. 


CHAPTER  VI. 


MEANING   AND   VALUE  OF   IMPRESSIONS.       LOCKE 
AND   HUME   DEPRECIATE   IMPRESSION. 

The  two  questions  of  all-important  philosophical  interest 
in  regard  of  impression,  are  what  is  its  meaning  and  value,  and 
what  is  its  genesis  or  history. 

Impression  is  the  present  and  lively  thought  of  our  own 
corporeal  reality,  of  the  reality  of  an  universe  of  things  which 
may  communicate  with  it,  and  of  the  actual  communication  of 
some  of  them  with  it  at  the  moment. 

I  ought  to  have  put,  before  'our  own  corporeal  reality'  'what 
we  call,'  or  after  it,  'i.e,  what  we  consider  such,'  in  order  to 
make  the  reader  fully  realise  that  all  thus  thought  of  is  given 
us  only  in  the  impression  (or  hxis  been  in  a  previous  impression); 
that  it  is  not  something  previously  thought  of,  or  in  any  way 
known  or  named  by  us,  with  which  impression,  as  soon  as  it 
arises,  is  compared,  or  to  which  it  is  referred. 

From  this  point  of  view  a  very  useful  glance  may  be  taken 
over  the  confused  battle  about  *  innate  ideas.'  Locke  says,  with 
reason,  you  must  not  suppose  anything  in  us  antecedent  to 
impression:  i,e.  you  must  not  suppose  that  we  know  about 
things  {i.e.  future  or  possible  things)  that  they  must  have  a 
cause,  that  there  must  be  room  for  them  to  be,  i.e.  space  or 
whatever  else  it  may  be:  we  think  nothing  about  things  or 
about  anything,  till  we  begin  to  have  '  impression,'  i.e.  to  think 
about  them  as  existing  before  us,  and  about  ourselves  as  existing 
in  the  middle  of  them :  and  as  soon  as  we  do  this,  we  judge  of 


58 


MEANING  AND  VALUE  OF  IMPRESSIONS. 


[chap. 


them  according  as  we  find  them.  But  the  important  error 
here,  the  root  of  what  I  have  called  the  bad  psychology,  is  this : 
that,  while  Locke  rightly  urges  that  whatever  might  possibly 
claim  to  be  innate  idea,  such  as  the  notion  of  cause,  space,  time, 
or  unity,  does  not  begin  till  impression  does,  and  is  in  fact  a  part 
of  it,  he  forgets  that  the  notion  of  any  reality  of  things  at 
all,  and  of  our  own  corporeal  reality,  is  equally  a  part  of  the 
impression :  he  says  in  effect, '  of  course  our  sight  of  the  thing 
is  not  a  chimera,  for  the  thing  was  there  before  we  saw  it,  for 
us  to  see  when  we  began  to  see  anything.'  In  reality,  the  bad 
psychologists  enter  upon  their  investigation  of  the  history  of 
our  successive  impressions  (which,  put  together,  we  call  the 
universe  as  we  know  it)  with  an  innate  idea  on  the  concrete 
side,  far  worse  than  the  innate  ideas  which  they  attack  on  the 
abstract  side,  viz.,  an  idea,  or  in  fact  knowledge,  of  what  is 
about  to  impress  us — the  very  thing  which  we  are  supposed 
to  be  going  to  find  out.  It  is  plain  that  Locke  has  from  the 
first  the  notion,  that  the  universe,  as  it  affects  our  senses,  is 
waiting  to  be  known  by  us.  There  is  no  harm  at  all  in  this 
notion  in  its  right  place,  only  we  may  with  equal  reason  say, 
that  our  mind,  with  its  special  or  appointed  manner  of  acting, 
is  waiting  to  know  the  universe:  and  it  is  the  law  of  this 
manner  of  acting  which  might  be  called  innate  or  preliminary 
idea.  Locke,  while  he  disallows  any  anticipation  of  the  universe 
to  be  known,  arising  from  knowledge  what  must  be  its  abstract 
qualities  (so  to  speak),  all  along  supposes  us  able  to  talk  about 
these  objects  as  existing,  and  to  examine  how,  thus  existing 
before  us  as  they  do,  it  comes  about  that  we  get  the  ideas  of 
them — and  much  beside  of  a  similar  nature. 

As  it  is — whatever  may  have  been  the  case  as  to  the 
*  pre-impressiouaV  the  waiting,  whether  of  our  minds  to  grasp 
the  universe,  or  of  it  to  be  noticed  by  us — for  us  the  universe, 
and  to  a  certain  extent  our  very  self,  begins  with  impression. 
I  keep  here  to  the  use  of  'impression'  for  intellectual  impression, 
as  I  have  explained  it,  and  in  that  case,  it  is  with  impression 
that  begins  our  corporeal  or  phenomenal  self, — what  the  Germans 
would  call  'the  empirical  I.'  So  far  as  we  can  use  our  mind 
to  find  the  truth,  the  question  whether  we  exist  corporeally,  and 


VI.] 


LOCKE   AND   HUME   DEPRECIATE   IMPRESSION. 


59 


the  question  whether  the  universe  exists  (which  are  really  one), 
are  questions,  or  a  question,  simply  of  the  meaning  and  value 
of  our  impression.  The  impression,  so  far  as  we  are  concerned, 
seems  to  stand  by  itself,  with  apparently  nothing  to  compare  it 
with,  so  as  to  form  any  judgment  about  it :  since  reality,  if  we 
wish  to  compare  it  with  that,  is  for  us  only  a  part  of  it,  is  known 
to  us  only  through  it,  is  not  reality  (so  far  as  we  can  know),  if 
our  impression  has  not  value  and  trustworthiness. 

Still,  the  question  of  the  meaning  and  the  value  of  our 
impression  is  the  great  question  of  all  philosophy,  and  we 
must  make  what  we  can  of  it.  We  cannot,  I  think,  in  our 
consideration  separate  meaning  and  value,  but  I  shall  try  to 
be  as  clear  about  them  as  I  can. 

Philosophers,  in  speaking  of  what  I  have  called  the  value  of 
our  impression,  have  naturally  taken  one  of  the  following  lines  : 
they  have  either  set  themselves  to  justify  and  commend  it:  or 
they  have  taken  it  as  fact,  giving,  in  one  way  or  another,  some 
sort  of  general  account  of  it  and  of  how  it  comes  about :  or 
they  have  depreciated  it,  and  considered  that,  so  far  as  we  can 
form  a  notion  of  the  highest  or  proper  truth,  impression  does 
not  give  it  us,  but  is,  more  or  less,  prejudice  and  error. 

We  have,  in  whatever  way,  the  notion  of  knowledge,  and  we 
distinguish,  from  thought  which  is  not  knowledge,  thought 
which  is  true  or  correct,  as  being  a  right  judgment  about  the 
object  of  our  thought.  When  we  thus  judge,  it  is  the  truth 
which  we  judge  about  the  thing  or  object :  or  if  we  like  rather 
to  apply  the  term  to  the  object,  it  is  the  truth  about  things 
which,  when  we  know,  we  know. 

The  question  as  to  the  value  of  impression  is  simply,  Is  it 
knowledge  ?  And  subordinate  to  this  are  the  questions,  Can 
we  really  have  any  other  notion  of  knowledge  than  as  such 
impression  ?  Can  we  test  the  value  of  impression,  and  is  there 
any  standard  to  judge  it  by  ?  and  others  of  similar  import. 

Imagination,  impression,  knowledge  (whether  the  same  or 
different)  are  all  modes  or  kinds  of  thought.  Imagination  is 
thinking  in  one  way,  impression  in  another,  knowledge,  if  it 
is  different  from  impression,  in  a  third.  Imagination  is  picturing 
the  object  with  the  feeling  of  its  not  being  present,  impression 


60 


MEANING  AND  VALUE  OF   IMPRESSIONS. 


[chap. 


with  the  feeling  of  its  being  present,  (to  speak  shortly). 
Imagination  is  wrong,  is  a  sort  of  counter-hallucination  or 
reverse  illusion,  if,  while  we  think  the  object  not  present,  it 
really  is  present :  we  may  fancy  a  thing  a  dream  or  a  mental 
image,  and  it  may  be  the  real  object  before  our  eyes, — 
something  like  Leontes  gazing  on  the  supposed  statue  of 
Hermione.  This,  which  I  call  wrong  imagination,  looking  at 
things  from  the  point  of  view  of  thought,  would  not  be  imagi- 
nation, but  impression,  if  we  looked  at  them  the  other  way : 
and  therefore  it  might  be  described  as  impression  mistaken  for 
imagination — the  real  for  the  non-real.  Similarly,  impression 
is  wrong — is  genuine  hallucination  or  illusion — if,  when  we 
think  the  object  present,  it  is  not  so.  As  before,  I  call  this 
wrong  impression:  it  may  be  also  described,  according  to  the 
language  which  I  just  used,  as  imagination  mistaken  for 
impression. 

Wrong  imagination  we  need  not  speak  of:  but  it  is  quite 
clear  that  we  are  perpetually  liable  to  wrong  impression,  or 
to  the  supposition  that  there  is  impression,  when  there  is  only 
imagination.  The  way  in  which  we  guard  against  this,  or 
test  and  correct  particular  impressions,  is  by  the  continual 
bringing  of  different  impressions  into  conjunction:  and  the 
final  standard  or  short  and  summary  formula  of  our  different 
processes  of  correction — our  test,  as  I  have  on  a  former 
occasion  called  it\  of  phenomenal  truth — is  double:  true  or 
right  impression  is  that  upon  which  we  can,  with  result,  act, 
or  put  forth  our  being,  it  being  consistent  with  itself,  true  for 
every  portion  of  our  corporeal  being,  uncontradicted,  and 
uncontradic table,  by  any  other  true  or  right  impression,  which 
contradiction  would  render  our  acting  impossible:  and  next, 
true  or  right  impression  is  that  upon  which  we  can  count  as 
being  true  or  right  for  other  intelligences  as  well  as  for  our 
own,  what  we  feel  that  others  sympathize  with  us  in,  what  is 
not  merely  individual. 

The  most  constant  occasion  occurring  to  us  for  testing 
impression  is  in  the  case  of  sight.     There  is  a  visible  picture 

• 

1  Expl  12,  13. 


VI.] 


LOCKE   AND   HUME   DEPRECIATE   IMPRESSION. 


61 


continually  before  us  when  it  is  day  and  our  eyes  are  open: 
and  this  picture  is  impression  to  us,  not  imagination  (in  which 
there  might  be  picture  scarcely  less  definite  and  vivid)  mainly 
in  virtue  of  these  two  things — that  we  might  act  upon  it,  i.e. 
put  out  our  hand  and  grasp  the  orange  before  us,  and  that 
others  will  share  with  us  in  it,  that  if  we  say  to  our  companion. 
Look  at  that  orange,  he  will  understand  what  we  mean. 

Still,  this  visible  picture,  though  it  is  impression,  is  what, 
independently  or  in  the  necessary  absence  of  the  above  means 
of  testing  it,  might  be  wrong  impression,  or  in  the  other  way  of 
language,  though  it  appears  to  us  impression,  might  be  only 
imagination :  and  it  is  this  fact  in  the  main  which  suggests  to 
us  that  something  similar  might  be  the  case  with  regard  to  our 
whole  mass  of  impression.  So  it  was  with  Berkeley.  It  is  not 
what  we  see,  he  said,  which  is  real,  but  what  we  touch,  and 
what  we  see  is  only  a  suggestive  of  this.  The  next  step  was 
immediate — How  do  we  know  that  what  we  touch  is  more  real 
than  what  we  see,  and  that  it  too  may  not  be  only  a  suggestive 
of  something?  If  we  want  touch  to  test  our  seeing,  and  to 
make  us  certain  that  the  visible  picture  is  impression,  can  we, 
without  anything  to  test  it  by,  rely  upon  our  impression  and 
rest  in  that,  and  make  certain  that  it  is,  as  we  think  it, 
knowledge  ? 

Is  then  the  whole  mass  of  our  impression  (i.e.  all  our 
thought  that  there  is  a  local  or  spatial  universe  with  things 
or  objects  in  it,  among  which  we  have  our  place,  and  which  we 
really  see  and  hear)  actually  or  conceivably  illusion,  i.e.  are 
the  universe  and  its  objects  one  thing,  while  we  take  them  for 
another,  unreal,  while  we  take  them  for  real  ? 

This  is  a  question  which  is  almost  certain  to  be  mistaken 
at  the  outset,  when  looked  at  superficially.  I  do  not  mean  to 
ask,  is  our  impression  visual  illusion  (which  is  what  I  suppose 
the  Hindoos  mean  by  Maya)  i.e.  is  it  a  wrong  impression 
correctible  by  other  impression,  or,  in  the  other  language,  is 
it  only  imagination  or  mental  picturing,  while  we  think  it 
impression?  This  is  what  Dr  Johnson  must  have  supposed 
Berkeley  to  mean  (i.e.  he  must  have  supposed  him  to  have 
meant  no  more  in  his  so-called  Idealism  than  he  did  in  his 


62  MEANING   AND  VALUE   OF  IMPRESSIONS.  [CHAP. 

Theory  of  Vision),  when  he  gave  a^  a  corrective  of  Berkeleianism 
the  simple  process  of  touch— kicking  the  table.     But  a  few 
minutes'  thought  will  get  us  beyond  superficialness  like  this. 
If  we  mean,  in  any  reasonable  sense,  that  our  impression  alto- 
gether is,  or  may  be,  anything  which  can  be  called  '  illusion, — 
to  put  the  thing  roughly,  that  while  we  think  there  is  a  real 
external  world,  there  really  is  not— we  must  mean  by  illusion 
a  something,  of  which  we  may  take  the  suggestion  from  the 
relation  of  sight  to  touch,  but  which  we  must  carry  much 
further    in    its   application.       What   is   simply   seen    may   be 
illusion:   we  cannot  tell  whether  it   is   so   or  not,  till   it   is 
touched :  this  is  because,  as  I  have  previously  explained,  what 
we  mean  here  by  'touch^'  is  a  great  mass  of  impression  both 
more  intimate  to  us  than  sight  and  more  general,  and  to  which 
we  refer  and  (in  a  manner)  subordinate  sight,  which  otherwise 
IS  isolated  and  partial.     Were  there  no  other  sense  but  sight 
sight  or  supposed  sight  could  not  under  any  circumstances  be 
illusion,  with  any  significance  of  the  term :   we  should  have 
nothing  then  to  test  sight  by,  or  compare  it  with,  but  itself 
As  It  IS,  as  compared  with  the  whole  mass  of  our  corporeal 
sensation  or  impression,  sight  is  in  a  manner  accidental  ^  (not 
but  that  our  notion  of  the  universe  is  materially  modified,  or 
even  determined,  by  its  existence):  but  still  there  is  no  sight  in 
the  dark,  there  are  some  people  without  sight,  we  might  readily 
conceive  our  body  without  eyes:  but  we  always  touch,  every 
one  touches,  our  body  must  touch  and  be  touched. 

Now  then  does  there  exist,  beyond  impression,  any  con- 
ception  of  knowledge  which  may  stand  to  our  whole  impression 
in  the  same,  or  something  like  the  same,  relation  in  which 
visual  impression,  or  what  we  think  such,  stands  to  tactual 
impression,  or  the  great  mass  of  our  impression,  by  which  we 
test  the  visual  ?  If  there  is,  then,  just  as  visual  impression  is 
wrong  impression  (or  only  imagination  thought  to  be  im- 
pression) if  it  will  not  answer  the  touch,  so  the  whole  tactual 
impression,  or  whole  mass  of  impression  which  is  taken  to  be 
knowledge,  is  wrong  knowledge,  or  not  real  knowledge  but  only 


VI.] 


LOCKE   AND   HUME   DEPRECIATE   IMPRESSION. 


63 


'  Expl.  7,  20,  32. 


*  Expl.  28. 


something  in  the  garb  of  knowledge,  unless  it  will  answer  this 
higher  knowledge,  come  into  relation  with  it,  be  found  to  have 
meaning  in  it,  bear  the  application  of  it  and  the  being  tested 
by  it. 

I  do  not  at  this  moment  assert  anything  about  the  existence 
or  non-existence  of  such  higher  knowledge :  I  only  say  that  it 
is  here  that  belongs  the  question  of  the  existence  of  an  external 
world,  or,  in  other  words,  the  question  of  the  illusiveness  of 
our  impression :  we  are  not  under  illusion  if  it  is  unreal,  unless 
we  suppose  it  otherwise :  but  we  are  under  illusion  if  we  think 
it  real,  while  it  is  not  so.  Only  this  illusion  is  tactual  illusion, 
such  as  I  have  been  endeavouring  to  explain,  not  visual— a 
thing  which  people,  I  think,  find  it  hard  to  see.  This  illusori- 
ness  of  the  universe  (supposing  it  to  exist)  neither  would,  nor 
does,  any  more  hinder  the  objects  in  it  being  tangible,  solid, 
substantial,  than  visual  illusoriness  would  hinder  their  being 
bright-coloured.  The  question  is,  whether  tangibility  and 
solidity  are  oiir  ideal  of  reality  ?  We  will  not  let  visual  reality 
stand,  fair-seeming  as  it  is:  are  we  to  rest  in  tactual  reality 
{i.e.  in  general  impressional  reality),  or  may  we  go  beyond  that 
also  ? 

Both  those  who  justify,  and  those  who  condemn,  on  the 
score  of  truthfulness,  our  impression,  must  be  conceived  to  go 
beyond  the  tactual  or  impressional  reality,  and  to  have  an  ideal 
of  truth,  of  some  kind,  independent  of  it.  Between  these  two, 
we  may  rest  in  the  impressional  reality,  as  a  fact,  and  consider 
that  that  is  all  our  notion  of  reality  and  all  we  can  have :  we 
then  put  aside  all  considerations  of  what  I  have  called  the 
value  of  our  impression,  and  only  speculate,  if  we  do  speculate, 
on  what  I  have  called  the  meaning  of  it. 

Those  who,  in  one  way  or  another,  condemn  or  depreciate 
our  impressional  view,  as  knowledge,  or  on  the  score  of  its 
truthfulness,  have  sometimes  been  called  sceptics,  and  at 
other  times,  by  the  equally  half-meant  and  little  understood 
terms,  mystics  and  idealists.  The  point  which  marks  them 
all,  however  called,  is,  that  they  must  have  an  ideal  (however 
derived)  of  what  knowledge,  as  knowledge,  is,  or,  in  other  words, 
of  what  actual  knowledge  ought  to  be,  to  which  they  refer  such 


64 


MEANING   AND  VALUE  OF  IMPRESSIONS.  [CHAP. 


VI.] 


LOCKE   AND   HUME   DEPRECIATE   IMPRESSION. 


65 


impressional  knowledge  or  qiiasi-knowledge  as  we  have,  and  find 
it  wanting. 

I  will  proceed  to  speak  of  the  manner  of  thinking  of  one  or 
two  of  the  philosophers  who,  as  I  have  expressed  it,  depreciate 
impression  as  knowledge.  It  is  carefully  to  be  kept  in  mind 
that  these  philosophers  may  very  likely,  in  another  point  of  view, 
exalt  impressional  knowledge  or,  as  they  will  call  it,  experience, 
i.e.  they  will  say  it  is  the  best  knowledge  we  have,  it  is  all  we 
have  to  go  upon,  it  is  our  knowledge.  It  is  not  of  this  that  I 
am  now  to  speak,  but  of  their  view  of  the  goodness  of  the 
quality  of  this  our  knowledge,  if  we  are  to  call  it  knowledge. 

Again,  on  each  occasion  of  speaking  f>f  the  value  attributed 
by  a  philosopher  to  impression,  T  shall  have  to  speak  also  of 
the  meaning,  as  I  have  called  it,  which  he  attributes  to  our 
impression,  i.e.  what  view  (he  considers)  people  have,  man  has, 
of  the  manner  of  existence  of  the  supposed  objects  of  our 
seosal  knowledge,  or,  as  it  is  frequently  expressed,  of  the 
external  world  and  the  laws  or  relations  of  it.  'What  do 
people  think  about  what  they  call  the  external  world  V  is 
the  question  as  to  meaning  of  impression.  '  Is  what  they  think 
about  it  right  V  or  is  what  they  think  about  it  (as  compared 
with  some  ideal  which  we  have  of  what  they  might  think),  in 
manner  and  kind,  poor,  defective,  unworthy,  perhaps  mistaken 
and  illusory  ?  or  is  what  they  think  about  it  simply  what  we 
must  rest  in  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  being  all  the  idea  which  we 
can  have  of  knowledge,  and  there  being  nothing  to  compare  it 
with — so  that  to  speak  of  it  as  right  or  wrong,  sufficient  or 
defective,  valuable  or  worthless,  is  unmeaning? 

These  are  what  we  may  call  the  three  questions,  or  the 
three  alternatives  of  the  question,  as  to  the  value  of  impression ; 
those  who  answer  the  second  question  in  the  affirmative  are 
those  whom  I  have  described  as  depreciating  its  value :  and  I 
will  proceed  to  speak  of  the  sentiments  of  one  of  them,  the 
same  by  whom  I  have  illustrated  the  term  *  impression'  and 
whom  I  have  already  in  this  chapter  largely  referred  to^ 
Hume. 

According  to  Hume,  our  entire  mass  of  impression,  or  *  our 
experience/  is  made  up  of  a  number  of  customary  conjunctions 


I 


of  particular  impressions.  These  customary  conjunctions  lead 
us  to  the  expectation,  that  when  one  of  the  impressions  arises, 
it  will  be  followed  by  the  others,  but  they  do  not  do  this  simply 
and  directly,  but  through  the  intervention  of  an  impression  or 
thought  which  is  chimerical  or  at  least  superfluous  or  un- 
meaning— viz.  that  the  (supposed)  object  of  the  one  impression  is 
what  we  call  the  cause  of  the  (supposed)  object  of  the  other,  the 
effect.  Thus  we  think  we  have  before  us  a  universe  of  causes 
and  effects,  of  action  and  production,  while  the  whole  fact  is 
a  mental  or  inward  custom,  which  our  particular  impressions 
have,  of  conjoining  themselves  in  this  or  that'  particular 
manner. 

There  is  what  seems  to  me  an  omission  in  Hume's  view 
above,  making  it  incomplete  from  his  own  point  of  view,  arising 
from  what  I  have  called  the  wrong  psychology, — an  omission 
in  which  Hume  has  been  followed  by  many  others.  Previous 
to  the  supposition  that  we  have  before  us  an  universe  of  causes 
and  effects,  we  must  have  the  supposition  that  we  have  before  us 
an  universe  of  things :  we  must  realize,  or  'mis-realize,'  particular 
impressions  into  things,  before  we  realize,  or  mis-realize,  the 
customary  conjunctions  of  the  impressions  in  our  minds  into 
causation,  action,  and  production.  But  Hume,  as  we  said  at 
the  beginning,  does  not  keep  his  notion  of  impression  clear,  or 
rather,  may  be  said  to  define  it  doubly,  without  any  attempt 
to  show  that  there  is  any  reality  or  fact  of  which  both  his 
characters  or  definitions  are  predicable,  so  that  they  do  or  will  go 
together.  He  describes  impression, — a  term  which  is  to  apply 
to  love  and  hate  as  well  as  to  sight  and  hearing — as  a  peculiar 
feeling  on  our  part,  differing  from  a  mere  idea  (thought  or 
imagination)  in  its  special  vividness ;  but  he  also,  as  he  goes  on, 
uses  it  as  if  he  meant  by  it  the  impression,  so  to  call  it,  which 
things  make  upon  our  corporeal  senses,  though  in  order  to 
mean  this  he  must  assume  the  existence  of  the  external  world 
with  its  objects,  as  people  commonly  speak  of  it,  which  is  not 
a  pre-assumption  before,  but  a  result  from,  and  part  of,  his 
previous  definition  of  impression.  And  yet  it  is  evident 
that,  exactly  in  the  same  way  as  cause  and  effect  have  (if 
it  be   so)  no   existence,  except  in   so   far  as  we  give  these 

M.  5 


i 


fe 


66  MEANING  AND  VALUE   OF  IMPRESSIONS.       [CHAP  VI. 

names  to  the  conjunction  of  our  impressions,  so  things  have 
(if  it  be  so)  no  existence,  except  in  so  far  as  we  give  this  name 
to  our  impressions  themselves.  We  interpret  (if  we  so  like  to 
call  it)  the  conjunctions  of  our  impressions  into  cause  and  effect, 
exactly  in  the  same  way  in  which  we  interpret  our  impressions 
into  things— whether  rightly,  wrongly,  or  merely  actually,  we 
shall  shortly  consider. 


( 


i 


<  \r 


CHAPTER  VII. 

COMPARISON   BETWEEN   MILL   AND   HUME    AS    TO    OUR 
KNOWLEDGE    OF    THE   EXTERNAL   WORLD. 

I  PROPOSE  here  to  give  an  account,  as  well  as  I  can,  of 
Mr  Mill's  view  in  his  lately  published  work  on  Sir  William 
Hamilton's  philosophy,  in  order  to  compare  it  with  that  of 
Hume  above. 

With  Mr  Mill,  the  great  and  fundamental  fact  is,  'sensation* 
— 'impression'  as  I  have  called  it  above.  It  is  a  main  point  with 
Mr  Mill  to  make  out  that  what  I  may  call  self-recognition,  or 
feeling  of  ourselves  as  feeling  or  as  impressed,  is  something 
acquired  or 'adventitious* :  it  is  not  conveyed  in  the  mere  notion 
of  sensation  or  impression,  neither  of  course,  in  his  view,  is  the 
feeling  of  an  object,  or  of  something  impressing,  so  conveyed. 
The  sensation  or  impression  itself  is  the  primary  fact :  we  say 
*  there  is  sensation,'  without  in  the  first  instance  considering  that 
it  is  anybody's  sensation  or  that  it  is  sensation  of  any  thing.  This 
comes  afterwards.  At  first,  sensation  is  in  a  manner  in  us,  but 
not  yet  felt  as  sensation  by  us.  And  the  next  great  point  with 
Mr  Mill  is  what  I  have  slightly  alluded  to,  that  a  vast  mass  of 
what  I  have  called  our  whole  impression,  i.e.  our  intellectual 
feeling  at  any  moment,  is  imagination.  In  speaking  of  Hume 
just  now,  I  admitted,  as  account  of  his '  idea '  (my  '  imagination ') 
that  it  was  remembered  impression :  but  Mr  Mill  is  far  more 
true  to  fact  in  drawing  attention  to  the  great  mass  of  antici- 
pated and  generally  imagined  impression  or  sensation,  which 
goes  with  any  particular  sensation,  and  which,  we  may  say,  is 

5—2 


68  COMPARISON   BETWEEN   MILL  AND  HUME   AS  TO      [CHAP. 

always  more  or  less  in  our  minds.     It  is  the  '  objectivization    or 
*  concretification '  of  this  great  mass  of  anticipated  or  possible 
sensation  or  supposed  possibility  of  sensation,  which,  in  Mr  Mill's 
view,  is  what  we  mean  by  an  external  world.     The  fact  being 
the  existence  of  sensation  or  impression,  what  we  come  to  think 
(our  secondary  or  supervening  impression)  is,  that,  though  at 
each  moment  sensation  is  only  particular,  yet  there  is  possibility 
of  an  infinite  mass  of  such  sensation— possibility  on  the  one  side 
as  capacity  of  feeling  (from  which  imagined  possibility  we  form 
the  notion  of  what  we  call  ourselves,  as  the  sentient),  possibility 
on  the  other  side  as  susceptibility  of  being  felt  (from  which  we 
form  the  notion  of  what  we  call  the  objective  or  external  world, 
as  the  'sentihle').      What  we  do  come  to  think   in  general 
(what,  in  my  language,  is  the  meaning  of  our  impression)  about 
the  external  world,  I  do  not  think  Mr  Mill  pronounces  very 
definitely.     He   seems  to   consider   first   that  our  notion,  for 
instance,  of  the  reality  of  Chimborazo  is  simply  an  imagination 
that,  if  we  were  transported  so  many  miles  in  such  and  such 
a  direction,  we  should  have  the  visual  sensation  of  whiteness 
and  vast  conical  figure,  followed  by  the  tactual  or  locomotive 
sensation  of  so  much  effort  in  mounting— that  is,  an  imagination 
of  the  possibility  of  these  sensations  for  us,  if  we  choose  to 
satisfy  the  requisite  conditions:   but  afterwards  he  seems  to 
consider  that  the  abstract  possibility  thus  thought  of  is  mentally 
conaretified  into  something  which  is  what  we  call  the  external 
world  or  things :  but  of  this  again. 

I  think  what  Mr  Mill  says  will  not  stand,  in  this  way. 
Even  our  knowledge  of  our  own  existence,  says  Mr  Mill, 
is  acquired,  is  posterior  to  sensation  or  impression.  Sensation 
or  impression  therefore,  as  such,  is  independent  of  it,  is  to  us 
in  the  first  instance  'unindividual.'  This  sensation  or  impression 
involves,  as  Mr  Mill  truly  says,  the  vast  mass  of  imagination 
which  he  describes.  But  since  sensation  thus,  as  a  fact  in 
itself,  does  not  involve  either  self-recognition  or  recognition  of 
an  object,  the  imagination  of  what  Mr  Mill  calls  possibilities  of 
sensation  is  simply  the  imagination  of  the  possibility,  so  to 
speak,  of  there  being  sensation,  as  a  bare  fact,  in  the  manner 
just  described.    It  is  not  imagination  of  a  sentient  (or  sensitive) 


VII.] 


OUR   KNOWLEDGE   OF   THE   EXTERNAL   WORLD. 


69 


and  a  '  sentible.*  The  certainly  existent  fact,  upon  which  all 
rests,  is,  in  Mr  Mill's  view,  the  existence  of  sensation,  which 
fact  does  not  till  afterwards  break  itself  up  into  two  members,  , 
perceivingness  and  perceivedness — sentience  and  sentibility  :  and 
even  when  it  does  so,  this  division  is  an  imagination,  compared  ^^ 
with  the  objective  certainty  of  the  fact  of  sensation  itself. 
What  Mr  Mill  does,  is  to  add  to  the  actual  and  concrete  fact 
of  sensation  or  impression,  the  abstract  atmosphere,  so  to  call 
it,  of  the  possibility,  or  the  possible  existence,  of  sensation  or 
impression,  an  Aristotelian  8vva/jLL<;  or  bare  capability  inhering 
in  nothing,  and  to  me  a  piece  of  what  I  have  before  called 
notionalism  ^  It  seems  to  me  a  very  vain  proceeding  to  suppose 
a  central  reality  of  actual  sensation  or  impression,  and  around 
this  a  wide  semi-reality  (shall  we  call  it  ?)  of  possibility  of  such. 
This  abstract  fact  of  the  possibility  of  there  being  sensation 
must  surely  depend  upon  some  actual  fact  in  the  entire 
universe,  and,  even  if  we  cannot  properly  apprehend  this 
latter  fact,  we  had  better  suppose  it  than  employ  our  thoughts 
in  that  region  of  abstractions.  The  supposition  made,  in  one 
way  or  another,  by  ordinary  human  impression  about  it,  is  that 
there  actually  exists  something  sentient — ourselves :  and  some- 
thing sentible  or  perceivable,  which,  as  perceived,  we  call  the 
external  world. 

In  Mr  Mill's  view,  the  collection  or  sum  of  possibilities  of 
sensation  will  not  describe  the  external  world,  or  the  universe, 
as  we  perceive  it  and  as  distinct  from  ourselves,  but  will  only 
describe  existence  in  general,  our  own  involved  with  that  of 
other  things.  Suppose  sensation  developed  into  notice  of  the 
external  universe  on  the  one  side,  and  self-recognition  on  the 
other :  then  we  want  a  word  to  express  these  different  sides  of 
sensation  or  impression.  Call  the  first  the  objective  side,  the 
second  the  subjective :  then  Mr  Mill  may  with  some  reason  say 
the  external  world  (or  what  we  call  so)  is  the  sum  of  the  possibili- 
ties of  objective  sensation,  and  our  own  being  of  the  possibilities 
of  subjective  sensation.  This  subjective  sensation  is  only  another 
view  of  what  I  call  sentience  or  perceivingness :  and  in  so  far  as 


1  ExpU  pp.  xni,  147. 


70  COMPAKISON  BETWEEN   MILL  AND  HUME  AS  TO'    [CHAP. 

we  conceive  it  as  something  distinct  from  objective  sensation, 
supervening  upon  sensation  as  a  whole,  and  not  necessarily 
involved  in  sensation  from  the  first,  and  a  part  of  the  notion 
of  it, — it  is  a  wrong  view.  Let  us  therefore  call  by  the  name 
of  sensation  (as  Mr  Mill  does,  with  more  truth  than  logical 
consistency)  the  objective  sensation  only :  we  then  have  the 
external  world  reasonably,  if  not  rightly,  defined,  the  sum  of 
possibilities  of  sensation  (i.e.  not  now  of  there  being  sensation, 
but  of  our  having  sensation),  we  might  say,  the  mass  of  senti- 
bility  or  perceivability.  Only  what  is  the  use  op  purpose  of 
this  abstract  manner  of  speaking  of  it  ?  How  is  it  better  to 
speak  of  the  universe  as  made  up  of  two  things  so  disparate  as 
'myself  and  'perceivableness,'  than  to  speak  of  it  as  'consisting 
of  things  or  real  existences,  of  which  I  am  one.' 

Human  impression  consists,  I  conceive,  in  the  main  as  to 
this,  in  the  supposition  of  a  substratum  to  this  perceivableness, 
or  in  the  notion  that,  where  there  is  possibility  of  sensation, 
there  must  be  reason  for  the  possibility,  there  must  be  a 
something  making  the  sensation  possible :  we  are  thus  prepared, 
in  my  view,  for  the  notion  of  real  objective  existence :  and  this 
notion  itself,  in  a  manner  which  I  have  described,  I  think  is  a 
reflex  or  projection  from  ourselves \ 

In  reality,  however,  there  is  something  more  to  be  said 
than  this.  Mr  Mill  in  another  place  rightly  distinguishes 
sensation,  as  simple  consciousness  or  feeling,  from  sensation 
as  conversation  or  communication  (through  eyes  and  ears 
known  to  exist)  with  objects  not  perhaps  themselves  hitherto 
known,  but  parts  of  a  known  universe  of  things.  Now  which 
does  sensation  mean  here  ?  Does  it  mean  the  simple  feeling 
or  consciousness,  what  Hume  and  I  have  called  'impression'? 
But  'possibilities  of  this  feeling  or  consciousness' — 'possible 
occasions  of  it,'  we  will  say  for  greater  clearness — give  us  no 
description  of  the  external  world,  though  they  may,  in  a  sort  of 
way,  of  existence  in  general.  If,  conceiving  the  feeling  simply 
as  feeling  thus,  we  are  to  set  ourselves  to  imagine  possible 
occasions  for  it  or  causes  of  it,  we  might  imagine  or  suppose  all 

1  Expl.  48,  51. 


VII.] 


OUR   KNOWLEDGE   OF  THE   EXTERNAL  WORLD. 


71 


' 


sorts  of  occasions  quite  different  from  those  which,  in  point  of 
fact,  we  always  do  come  to  imagine  and  suppose,  viz.  that  we 
have  what  we  call  eyes  and  ears,  and  that  there  are  certain 
things,  which  we  call  external  objects,  which  communicate 
with  these.  If,  however,  we  conceive  the  feeling  not  simply  as 
feeling,  but  as  communication  through  eyes,  ears,  &c.  with 
external  objects,  then  we  are  too  late  to  give  an  account  of  the 
external  world,  for  we  are  in  the  middle  of  it  already:  it  will 
not  do  to  say  that  the  external  world  is  the  collection  of 
possibilities  of  images  on  the  retina  and  vibrations  of  the 
tympanum,  for  these  very  things  themselves  are  part  of  it. 
If  we  mean  by  sensation,  feeling,  Mr  Mill's  description  is  too 
wide :   if  we  mean  communication,  it  is  too  narrow. 

This  is  in  substance  the  same  thing  as  what  I  have 
previously  said,  that  the  position  taken  by  Mr  Mill  seems  to 
me  to  spoil  phenomenalism  without  sufficiently  rising  to  philo- 
sophy. The  external  world,  on  Mr  Mill's  view,  is  made  either 
too  much  of,  or  too  little  of,  according  to  his  meaning  of 
'sensation.'  The  external  world  is  not  so  much  as  the 
(supposed)  sum  of  possible  occasions  of  thought ;  if  we  suppose 
the  latter  (the  occasions  of  thought)  to  be  no  more  than  the 
former  (the  external  world),  we  preclude  all  philosophy.  But 
the  external  world  is  more  than  the  (supposed)  sum  of  possible 
occasions  of  sensive  communication:  it  is  as  real,  as  primary 
and  early  a  fact,  as  that  is,  and  exists  as  much  as  that  does. 
The  external  world,  together  with  other  things  which  we 
believe,  conceive,  or  think  of,  waits  or  hangs  upon  our  whole 
thought,  and  we  may  and  must  examine  the  nature  of  our 
conception  of  such  a  world  in  reference  to  this  whole  thought : 
but  the  external  world  does  not  wait  or  hang  upon  our  seeing 
hearing,  touch :  it  is  as  real  as  these.  If  seeing,  hearing, 
touching,  are  active  verbs  with  objects  (i.e.  if  we  see  any- 
thing, hear  anything,  &c.),  then  there  is  an  external  world 
as  real  as  the  seeing  and  hearing,  which  is  not  sufficiently 
described  by  calling  it  the  sum  of  possibilities  or  possible 
occasions  of  such  seeing,  hearing,  &c.  If  seeing,  hearing, 
touching,  are  viewed  as  modes  of  consciousness  or  feeling  only, 
and  are  thus  neuter  verbs,  not  involving  in  them  of  necessity 


72  COMPARISON   BETWEEN   MILL   AND   HUME   AS  TO       [CHAP. 

any  object  beyond  the  sight  or  feeling  itself— if  they  mean, 
we  feel  what  we  call  seeingly^  we  have  an  impression  of  our- 
selves with  what  we  call  eyes  and  ears  in  the  middle  of  what 
we  call  a  lighted  scene  with  sounds  sounding  here  and  there 
about  it — then  we  are  giving  too  wide  a  definition  of  the 
external  world  in  saying  that  it  is  the  sum  of  possibility  of  our 
thinking  in  this  manner.  What  we  call  the  external  world,  in 
any  ordinary  use  of  the  term,  is  the  result  to  us  of  our  thinking 
in  this  manner,  and  it  is  carrying  the  word  beyond  all  definite 
meaning  to  describe  it  as  what  gives  possibility  or  occasion,  or 
as  the  condition  of  our  thinking  so.  For  instance,  we  can  as 
little  disprove,  as  Berkeley  can  prove,  that  our  thought  of  this 
kind  is  (for  so  we  may  really  put  his  view)  an  immediate 
inspiration  of  the  Deity.  There  is  meaning  in  considering  that 
thought  thus  originated  might  result  to  us,  rightly  or  wrongly, 
in  the  notion  of  an  external  world,  but  there  is  no  meaning  in 
defining  'external  world'  as  the  possibility,  or  the  fact  of  its 
being  possible,  that  we  can  have  such  thought.  We  can  form 
no  notion  of  such  possibility:  the  thing  might  be  possible, 
whether  in  the  Berkeleian  way  mentioned  above  or  perhaps  in 
a  thousand  other  ways:  to  call  this  indefinite  possibility  by 
the  name  '  external  world '  is  unmeaning. 

In  reality,  for  Mr  Mill's  definition  to  be  in  any  degree  not 
only  reasonable,  but  right,  it  ought  to  stand,  that  the  external 
world  is  the  sum  of  the  possibilities,  or  possible  occasions  which 
we  imagine  or  suppose,  of  our  sensation  as  feeling,  according  to 
the  ordinary  course  of  human  imagination  or  supposition  in 
these  matters,  the  history,  as  I  call  it,  of  human  impression. 

Mr  Mill  has  probably,  through  his  distinctness  of  thought, 
got  nearer  than  almost  any  Englishman  to  freedom  from  the 
old  Lockian  mis-psychology:  but  I  question  whether  his  use 
of  the  word  '  sensation '  here  is  really  free  from  it,  and  I  think 
it  possible  that  he  may  scarcely  wish  it  to  be,  for  fear  lest 
what  he  calls  'experience'  may  be  called  by  others  mere 
*  imagination.' 

The    application    of   the    term    experience  to   the   earlier 

^  For  this  adverbial  mode  of  expression  compare  Expl.  4,  87,  108. 


/• 


vil] 


OUR   KNOWLEDGE   OF   THE   EXTERNAL   WORLD. 


73 


I 


/ 


? 


processes  of  mind,  as  Mr  Mill  applies  it,  requires  careful 
watching,  for  two  reasons:  viz.  to  see  how  far  the  applier  of 
it  invests  it,  in  its  new  application,  with  associations  and 
suggestions  which  belong  to  it  only  properly  in  its  old :  next, 
to  see  whether  it  carries  with  it  any  misleading  suggestion  in 
this  way  of  mis-psychology.  We  may  describe  what  I  call 
'the  history  of  human  impression,'  as  'the  history  of  human 
experience ' :  but  we  must  deal  with  the  word  experience  here 
exactly  as  we  dealt  with  the  word  'sensation.'  If  the  nature 
of  the  existence  of  the  external  world  is  at  all  under  discussion, 
or  if,  e.g.  it  is  said  that  we  learn  that  existence  by  '  experience,' 
then  *  experience '  must  mean  mental  experience  simply,  in 
a  somewhat  similar  way  to  the  way  in  w^hich  it  has  been  used 
by  religious  writers.  A  man,  says  Mr  Mill,  each  man,  knows 
nothing  intuitively,  but  goes  through  a  course  of  experience. 
This  experience  is  of  certain  very  definite  and  peculiar  feelings, 
in  the  first  instance  called  sensations,  and  then  of  the  feeling 
of  impulse  to  expand  or  supplement  them  by  wide-ranging 
thought  or  imagination,  making  us  fancy  the  first  feelings 
under  all  sorts  of  circumstances:  what  we  call  the  external 
world  is  a  sort  of  summary  conception  of  the  whole  possible 
variety  of  such  circumstances.  When,  in  this  view,  it  is  said 
that  we  know  things  by  experience  and  not  by  intuition,  all 
that  is  or  ought  to  be  meant  is,  that  we  have  a  mental 
experience  or  history,  that  we  do  not  bring  our  knowledge  into 
the  world  with  us.  To  any  person  who  has  pleasure  in  using 
the  word  '  imagination '  depreciatingly,  this  mental  experience 
is  as  liable  to  be  called  by  that  name  as  any  individual 
intuition  is.  But  when  the  word  'experience'  is  used  about 
it,  it  is  very  likely  that,  in  order  to  obviate  this  liability,  the 
term  is  made  to  carry  with  it,  at  the  cost  of  mis-psychological 
error,  associations  which  it  should  not.  Experience,  as  above,  is 
a  thread  or  course  of  successive  change  of  feeling;  which  is  quite 
a  different  thing  from  experience  as  acquaintance  with  anything 
as  matter  of  fact,  i.e.  fi-om  knowledge  by  actual  communication 
and  trial,  as  opposed  to  knowledge  (or  supposed  knowledge)  by 
thought  and  speculation.  In  the  old  Lockian  psychology,  the 
two  characters  of  the  notion  '  experience '  fused  very  well  into 


74  COMPARISON   BETWEEN   MILL  AND  HUME   AS  TO      [CHAP. 

one:   experience  of  the   external  world  (which  world,  we  of 
course  all  know,  exists  and  which  our  senses  are  conversant 
with)  was  at  once  a  course  of  mental  history  and  a  course 
of  communication   with   what   was  allowed  to  be  fact.     But 
with   better   notions   of  this   psychology,   the  word   'experi- 
ence,'   like   'sensation,'    splits    into    two.      In    experience   as 
mental  history,  we  are  not  brought  into  communication  with 
any  allowed   fact  beyond   ourselves:   there  is  nothing  there- 
fore,  except   what    there    may   be    in    the    feeling    itself    to 
distinguish  it  from  imagination.     It  is  the  same  with  Mr  Mill  s 
use  of  the  word  '  acquired.'     The  knowledge  of  the  external 
world,  he  says,  is  not  intuitive,  but   'acquired.'     'Acquired' 
means  got  from  somewhere.      Acquired  from  whence  ?     Where 
is  there  anything  it  can  come  from  ?     What  test  have  we  that 
it  is  not  invention  and  imagination  of  our  own  ?     These  words 
'experience'  (thus  used), ' acquired,'  &c.  all  belong  to  the  old 
psychology,  which  took  for  granted  the  external  world  and  had 
therefore  something  for  us  to  be  acquainted  with  and  to  get 
our  ideas  from :  but  the  notion  of  experience  of  there  being  an 
external  world,  and  acquisition  of  the  knowledge  that  there  is 
such,  is  like  taking  the  tortoise  or  elephant  out  of  the  world 
to  support  it,  without  thinking  what  is  to  support  him. 

It  may  aid  clearness  if  I  try  to  say  as  distinctly  as  I  can 
in  what  I  agree  with  Mr  Mill's  views  and  in  what  dififer  from 

them. 

I  will  begin  with  quoting  a  passage  from  Locke  {hssay, 

Book  2,  §  3). 

Our  senses  conversant  about  particular  sensible  objects  do  convey  into 
the  mind  several  distinct  perceptions  of  things,  according  to  those  various 
ways  wherein  those  objects  do  affect  them  :  and  thus  we  come  to  those 
ideas  we  have  of  yellow,  white,  heat... and  all  those  which  we  call  sensible 
qualities :  which  when  I  say  the  senses  convey  into  the  mind,  I  mean, 
they  from  external  objects  convey  into  the  mind  what  produces  there 
those  perceptions  1. 

This  passage  exhibits  rather  pointedly  the  bad  psychology. 

1  The  text  has  no  exact  reference,  but  I  gather  that  the  above  is  the 
quotation  intended,  from  the  marginal  note  (' "  conversant  with  external  objects," 
Locke,  beginning '). 


VII.] 


OUR  KNOWLEDGE   OF  THE   EXTERNAL  WORLD. 


75 


In  reality,  the  conversance  of  our  senses  with  external  objects 
and  the  formation  by  our  mind  of  the  ideas  of  the  objects  are 
the  same  thing  looked  at  from  one  end  of  the  process  and  from 
the  other.  Mr  Mill  as  I  have  said,  has  gone  nearer  than  most 
to  the  recognition  of  this.  In  his  Logic,  as  we  saw,  he  treats 
our  knowledge  as  what  Locke  here  would  call '  the  conversance 
of  our  senses  with  external  objects,'  as  e.g.  the  sight  of  things, 
and  repudiates  the  necessity  of  saying  anything  about  ideas  of 
things,  considering  this  as  something  quite  superfluous.  In 
his  Examination  of  Sir  W.  Hamilton,  he  treats  our  knowledge 
from  the  other  side,  the  subjective,  as  the  formation  of  ideas, 
the  having  sensations,  however  it  may  be  described :  and 
instead  of  'conversance  with  external  objects,'  we  have  con- 
ception of  occasions,  conditions,  circumstances  of  the  above 
ideas  or  sensations,  which  become  external  objects  to  us 
(whatever  we  may  mean  by  external  objects)  because  the  mind 
so  looks  at  them. 

Now  Mr  Mill  is  in  my  view  quite  right  in  putting  into  two 
books,  or  two  lines  of  consideration,  what  Locke  and  the  wrong 
psychologists  put  into  one.  Where  I  differ  from  him  is  as 
follows. 

When  I  said  that  the  formation  of  ideas  or  having  sensations 
on  the  one  side,  was  the  same  thing  as  the  conversance  or 
communication  between  the  senses  and  external  objects  on  the 
other,  I  was  not  quite  accurate.  They  are  the  same  thing  to 
the  whole  extent  of  the  latter,  but  the  former  is  more  extensive 
than  the  latter,  begins  earlier  and  runs  further  back  than  it. 
Previous  to  the  possibility  of  the  notion  of  conversance  of  our 
senses  with  the  external  world,  we  must  have,  and  we  do  have, 
the  great  and  cardinal  idea  or  sensation  of  our  having  senses^ 
which  is  the  same  as  the  notion  of  the  existence  of  an  external 
world,  and  the  same  also  as  the  notion  of  our  being  corporeal. 
This  portion  of  the  subjective,  or,  as  I  have  formerly  called  it, 
philosophical,  line  of  thought  is  outside ^  previous  to,  independent 
of,  the  phenomenalist  line  of  thought  or  investigation  of  the 
knowledge  of  the  external  world  by  means  of  our  senses,  though 
otherwise  they  are  the  same  thought  moving  different  ways. 

When  we  are  firmly  lodged  in  thought  upon  the  ground 


76  COMPARISON   BETWEEN   MILL   AND   HUME   AS  TO       [CHAP. 

that  we  are  corporeal  with  senses,  and  that  there  is  a  world 
external  or  independent  of  us  and  yet  of  which  we  are  a  part, 
a  world  which  makes  known  its  various  features  to  us  through 
the  variety  of  our  senses— ^/ie?i  we  may  talk  with  full  meanmg 
of  expemence  of  things,  or  knowledge  by  actual  trial,  which 
knowledge  there  is  no  fear  of  confounding  with  imagination  or 
illusion :  and  so  we  may  talk  of  acquiring  this  experience  and 
knowledge,  and  be  quite  certain  that  it  is  a  real  gain.     And 
to  the  extent   to  which   the  two  lines  of  thought,  which  I 
mentioned  above,  are  what  we  may  call  'counter-coincident' 
{%.e.  the  same  thought  moving  in  opposite  directions),  we  may 
use  such  terms  as  experience  in  speaking  of  the  formation  of 
ideas,  as  well  as  of  objects  becoming  known  to  us,  without 
variation  of  meaning.     But  it  is  not  so  when  we  speak  of  the 
formation  of  ideas  in   that   antecedent   region  where   it   has 
nothing  in  the  other  line  of  thought  to  correspond  with  it. 
Experience  is  then  undistinguishable  from  imagination,  acqui- 
sition from  intuition  or  mere,  perhaps  arbitrary,  conception, 
unless  we  can  find  some  means  of  distinction  in  the  manner  of 
the  thought  itself     The  force  of  a  notion  being  non-intuitive 
is  that  it  comes  in  some  way  or  other  ah  extra^  or  stands  in 
a  necessary  relation  with  the  extra :  its  posteriority  in  date  is 
only  of  importance  as  it  bears  witness  to  this.     Hence  it  is 
contrary  to  all  reason  to  call  the  notion  of  an  '  extra '  itself  one 
of  experience  or  acquisition,  unless  we  mean,  as  I  have  said, 
simple  mental  experience.     If  there  is  such  a  thing  as  in- 
tuition—a  word  which  is  not  a  word  of  my  u^Q—this  must 

be  intuitive. 

Mr  Mill  then  is  really  an  intuitionist,  or  in  fact  'imagi- 
nationist '  under  the  form  of  applying  back  the  terms  of  our 
later  processes  of  knowledge  to  our  primary  and  rudimental 
processes :  in  the '  imaginationism,'  taken  by  itself,  I  agree  with 
him:   in  the  language  in  which  he  attempts  to  clothe  it,  of 

course  I  differ. 

In  my  view,  our  notion  of  the  external  world  is  a  vast 
tactual  or  corporeal  imagination  (using  '  imagination '  here  to 
express  what,  so  far  as  the  term  goes,  may  be  real,  or  may  not 
be,  may  be  truth,  or  may  be  illusion)  having  without  all  doubt, 


VII.] 


OUR   KNOWLEDGE   OF  THE   EXTERNAL   WORLD. 


77 


its  own  truth,  of  tangibility  etc.,  but,  in  so  far  as  it  may  claim 
to  be  anything  more  than  this,  and  to  satisfy  any  higher  notions 
of  truth  or  reality  which  we  may  have,  requiring  to  justify  itself 
and  to  be  corrected  by  such  higher  notions,  in  the  same  way  as 
the  visual  imagination  or  scene  is  by  it.  Tangibility,  (by  which 
I  here  mean  the  utmost  amount  of  simply  corporeal  sentibility) 
is  very  far  from  exhausting  my  notion  of  reality.  Things  are  to 
me  something  more  than  clouds,  and  thinghood  is  more  than 
sapid,  odoriferous,  coloured,  shape  and  magnitude :  and  as  our 
touch  and  movement  put  body  and  solidity  into  the  visual 
scene,  so  we  want  our  thought,  activity,  and  self-consciousness 
to  put  soul  and  meaning  into  the  tactual  or  simply  corporeal 
conception  of  the  universe,  or  else  this  latter  is  to  us  an 
imagination  only,  or  if  we  take  it  for  more  than  an  imagination, 
an  illusion,  a  shell,  or  superficial  representation,  which  ought 
to  have  a  meaning,  a  soul,  an  interior,  but  has  not. 


n. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

ON    PHILOSOPHICAL    SCEPTICISM. 

The  term  'scepticism'  is  one  which  I  am  not  very  fond 
of  seeing  used,  because  I  think  in  various  ways  it  creates 
prejudice,  and  hinders  justness  of  thought.  It  is  used  by 
Mr  Buckle,  it  would  almost  appear  with  the  view  of  giving 
unnecessary  offence,  to  express  that  examination  of  the 
claims  of  whatever  professes  to  be  authoritative  and  true, 
which  is  as  valuable  as  he  describes  it  to  be,  and  which  is 
consistent  with  abundant  readiness  to  believe  after  such  exami- 
nation. It  is  used  very  much  by  the  school  of  psychology  of 
which  I  have  been  speaking^  The  notion  of  obviating  or 
avoiding  it  has  guided  many  late  philosophical  speculations. 
But  we  should  try  to  present  very  clearly  to  our  minds  what 
it  is  we  want  to  avoid  or  obviate. 

Am  I  '  sceptical '  in  saying  that,  after  all,  the  phenomenal 
world,  or  the  existence  of  all  that  with  which  we  communicate 
by  our  body  or  our  senses,  is  a  thought,  i.e.  that  the  question 
Whether  it  exists,  is  the  same  as  the  question  Whether  we  say 
or  think  rightly  when  we  say  or  think  it  exists, — in  other  words, 
that  our  thought,  in  this  very  ultimate  and  lofty  region,  has  or 
is  susceptible  of  some  character  analogous  in  some  respects  to 
what  we  call  rightness  or  correctness  of  thought  in  the  lower 
and  commoner  applications  of  it  ?  The  question,  so  far  as  there 
is  any  question,  in  reference  to  this  is, — to  what,  in  this  high 
region,  are  we  to  refer  rightness  or  correctness  of  thought? 

1  That  is,  by  Hamilton  and  the  Scotch  psychologists. 


CHAP.  VIII.]  ON   PHILOSOPHICAL  SCEPTICISM. 


79 


I 


what  is  the  ultimate  test  of  truth  ?  I  say  nothing  of  the  value 
of  speculations  of  this  kind  :  I  only  say,  that  I  am  unable  to 
see  with  what  significance  it  is  called,  if  it  is  called,  scepticism. 
The  true  antidote  against  what  I  call  scepticism  is  a  firm  hold 
of  the  Cartesian  *  cogito,'  the  fact  of  facts  in  my  view.  Allow 
to  the  universe,  with  which  we  corporeally  communicate,  the 
fullest  phenomenal  existence:  what  is  the  harm  in  the  sup- 
position that  we  know  its  existence  less  intimately  than  we 
know  our  own  ?  that  we  know  it,  so  far  as  we  know  it,  as  the 
supposed  occasion  of  many  portions  of  our  consciousness,  or,  in 
Sir  William  Hamilton's  language,  mediately  ? 

It  appears  to  me  that  all  the  supposed  odiousness  and 
terrors  of  the  notion  of  scepticism,  as  applied  to  any  consideration 
of  this  kind,  arise  from  the  false  and  confused  view  which 
belongs,  as  I  have  described,  to  the  psychology  of  Locke  and 
others.  The  term  '  scepticism,'  understood  by  none,  is  bandied 
about,  and  one  supposed  form  of  it  is  refuted,  as  by  Berkeley, 
by  a  view  then  perhaps  characterized  as  more  sceptical  still. 
The  psychology  I  am  speaking  of  begins  with  assuming,  as  the 
groundwork  and  frame  of  all,  the  phenomenal  world  as  existing, 
and  then  says,  we  must  describe  our  consciousness  in  such  a 
manner  that  we  shall  necessarily  see  this  world  to  exist  in  the 
same  way  as  that  in  which  it  is  thus  gratuitously  assumed  as 
existing,  or  else  we  are  sceptics.  Is  not  this  a  thorough  con- 
fusion ?  If  we  are  certain  that  things  exist  in  the  manner  in 
which  we  thus  began  with  assuming  they  do,  so  certain  that  we 
may  assume  their  existence  as  the  basis  of  truth,  and  that  it 
is  scepticism  to  doubt  it — what  good  is  done,  what  additional 
certainty  is  gained,  by  the  proving  that  we  are  conscious  of 
their  existence,  or  that  it  is  a  part  of  our  consciousness  ?  We 
have  assumed  their  existence  long  ago,  and  everything  that  we 
have  said  has  gone  on  the  supposition  of  it.  If  we  are  not 
conscious  of  their  existence,  at  worst  it  is  a  misfortune  to  us, 
a  defect  of  our  understanding,  upon  which  nothing  depends  as 
to  the  things,  for  that  they  are  existent  we  supposed  at  the 
first. 

I  do  not  see  by  what  possibility  we  can  ever  escape  from 
such  scepticism  (if  so  we  are  to  call  it)  as  is  implied  in  saying 


80 


ON   PHILOSOPHICAL   SCEPTICISM. 


[chap. 


that,  in  the  first  instance  or  last  resort,  phenomenal  existence 
is  a  supposition  or  imagination  on  our  part, — we  will  hope  a 
right   one.     'Sir  William    Hamilton'  says   an   admirable  ex- 
positor of  his  doctrine.  Professor  Eraser,  whom  I  quote  because 
he  has  added  a  clearness  which  did  not  always  exist,  and  has 
put  the  view  in  a  convenient  form,  'maintains  that  certain  of 
the  qualities  of  matter  are  the  direct  objects  of  a  mysterious 
wsight,  and  thus  that  the  mind  is  conscious  of  material  as  well 
as  of  mental  qualities^':  and  by  this  view  he  is  said  to  get  rid 
of  '  a  refined  or  egoistical  idealism/  on  which  we  can  never  '  get 
beyond  the  succession  of  our  own  thoughts  and  feelings,  while 
even  this  self-knowledge  itself  is  illusory^'     But  after  all,  is  it 
not  our  insight  ?     How  can  we  tell  it  is  right  ?     How  can  we 
tell  it  is  insighty  and  not  mere  imagination  ?     Is  there  not  an 
entire  confusion  of  view  here,  and  in  the  supposition  that  this 
is  any  security  against  scepticism  ?     Does  it  not  amount  to 
saying,  We  know  in  some  by-way — how,  I  cannot  conceive,  but 
(say)  by  testimony — that  there  is  an  universe  of  things,  and 
now  we  want  to  make,  what  we  call,  our  knowledge,  the  nature 
of  which  we  are  investigating,  fall  in  with  this  independent 
knowledge  of  the  things,  and  confirm  its  testimony  to  their 
existence:   so  we  will  describe  this  latter  knowledge  as  'the 
having  a  mysterious  insight  into  them,'  and  thus  prevent  the 
scepticism   which   there   would   be,  if,   knowing   somehow   or 
other  that  we  ought  to  know  them,  we  yet  cannot  find  out 

that  we  do  1 

The  insight  is  known  to  be  insight,  not  mere  imagination, 
because  it  is  supposed  to  be  into  the  fact,  and  yet  the  fact 
is  only  known  to  be  fact  by  means  of  the  insight — is  the  logic 

good? 

Just  the  same  thing  must,  I  think,  be  said  on  the  notion  of 
Sir  William  Hamilton's  which  Professor  Fraser  describes  as  '  a 
consciousness  of  certain  qualities  of  matter.*  The  whole  point 
of  the  term  *  consciousness '  is  the  reference  to  ourselves :  when 
we  speak  of  the  evidence  of  consciousness  being  what  cannot 
be  gainsaid,  it  is  because  consciousness  is  what  Mr  Fraser  terms 


viil] 


ON  philosophical  scepticism. 


81 


'egoistical,'  concerned  only  with  what  we  are  proper  judges  of. 
We  are  conscious  indeed  of  a  non-ego,  as  what  I  have  called 
the  occasion  of  sensation,  as  fitting  to  our  mind,  on  the  principle 
of  what  I  have  called  '  counter-notion '  ^ :  but  the  supposition  of 
consciousness  going  beyond  ourselves  is  merely  altering  the 
signification  of  the  word,  and  making  it  no  longer  what  we  can 
necessarily  trust  to.  I  will  not  say  whether  '  a  consciousness 
of  the  qualities  of  matter '  would  be  a  going  beyond  ourselves : 
all  I  say  is,  if  it  does  not  go  beyond  ourselves,  it  does  Sir 
William  Hamilton  no  good  and  does  not  obviate  the  egoism, 
and  if  it  does  go  beyond  ourselves  it  is  no  longer  consciousness 
in  the  sense  of  what  cannot  possibly  be  gainsaid. 

The  question  however  now  is  whether  this  insight,  or 
consciousness,  is  the  only,  or  the  best  remedy  against  scepticism. 
I  do  not  understand  how  this  is  so  at  all.  If  we  are  certain 
that  the  universe  does  exist,  why  so  much  effort  to  prove  that 
we  have  an  insight  into,  or  consciousness  of,  its  existence,  and 
how  is  its  existence  the  better  or  the  more  certain  for  our 
having  this  ?  If  we  are  not  certain  that  it  does  exist,  how 
is  it  any  help  against  scepticism  to  establish  that  by  means 
of  some  sort  of  insight  or  consciousness  we  are  so  certain, 
when,  by  the  very  supposition  we  are  making,  we  confess  that 
perhaps  after  all  it  does  not  exist  ?  If  we  do  not  know  that 
things  exist,  what  is  the  harm  of  doubting  their  existence,  or 
why  should  it  be  called  scepticism  ?  If  we  do  know  that  they 
exist,  what  is  the  use  of  making  certainty  more  certain  ? 

It  will  be  said.  In  thus  upholding  an  extravagant  idealism, 
removing  from  things  all  basis  of  reality,  at  the  same  time  that] 
for  actual  and  particular  knowledge,  you  recognise  phenomena 
alone  as  what  phenomenalists  call  '  experience,'  do  you  not  fall 
into  that  very  scepticism  of  Hume,  which  later  Scotch  psy- 
chology and  even  Kantism  has  never  been  able  to  take  its 
eyes  off  from  ? 

The  word  'idealism  '  is  as  random  in  application  as  'scepti- 
cism,' and  therefore  we  had  better  not  go  in  any  way  by  the 
application  of  that. 


Fraser,  Essays  in  Philosophy,  p.  94. 


2  ib.  p.  93. 


»  Expl.  p.  23. 


ON  PHILOSOPHICAL  SCEPTICISM. 


[chap. 


82 

The  differences  between  my  view  and  that  of  Hume  seem 
to  be  in  substance  two :   and  they  are  tolerably  vital. 

One  is,  that  in  my  view  (which  is  here  the  Cartesian)  the 
great  fact  of  facts  is  thinking,  cogitantia,  not,  as  in  his,  cogitatio, 
thought.     The  difference  is,  that  the  first  does  not  vanish  as 
we   pursue   it,  though   the   second  may.     Cogitatio,   Humian 
impressions,  Lockian  ideas,  supposing  all  resolvable  mto  that, 
may  after  all  be  supposed  to  be  a  phenomenon,  and  then  what  is 
there  but  phenomenon  ?    How  do  we  know  that  anything  exists, 
even  ourselves  ?     This  T  understand  as  the  Humian  scepticism. 
In  reality,  it  seems  to  me  to  be  all  immediately  involved  in  the 
assumption  from  which  it  starts.     It  assumes  that  we  have  no 
basis  of  truth,  but  must  be  sceptics,  unless  we  can  get  at  some 
fact  independent  of  our  knowing  it,  on  which  then  our  knowledge 
follows,  as  what  I  have  called  a  sort  of  accidents     Hume  says. 
Try :  and  see  whether  the  ultimate  fact  of  all,  knowledge  itself, 
is  other  than  a  phenomenon.     There  exist— we  can  predicate 
of  them   no  where,  when,  how,  or  anything  but  existence— 
impressions:  one  such  impression  is  that  we  exist,  another  is 
that  the  universe  exists:   but  the  impressions  themselves  are 
only  phenomena  or  a  phenomenon:  there  is  no  such  thing  as 

knowledge. 

Against  this  I  assert  that  the  fact  of  facts  is  not  cogitatio, 
thought,  impression,  but  cogitantia,  Hhinkingness,'^  mind  (if 
we  like  to  use  this  last  word  in  a  very  vague  application) :  and 
thinkingness  cannot  be  a  phenomenon,  for  the  very  meaning 
of  the  word  phenomenon  is  what  seems  to  it.  In  using  the 
term  phenomenon,  and  predicating  it  of  something  which 
nevertheless  we  say  is  the  furthest  fact  which  we  can  get  to, 
we  are  really  contradicting  ourselves,  for  we  are  predicating 
the  existence  of  something  in  virtue  of  which  the  phenomenon 
is  phenomenon.  And  cogitantia  involves  the  supposition  of  I, 
self,  personality,  as  a  part  of  the  thinkingness.  I  do  not  mean 
that  it  involves  it  with  any  particularity,  or  tells  us  much  about 
it :  that  is  a  further  question :  only  sufficiently  to  negative  the 
supposition,  that  even  our  own  existence  is  a  matter  of  mere 
seeming. 


1  Expl.  10, 16. 


2  Expl.  p.  140. 


VIII.] 


ON  philosophical  scepticism. 


83 


I  do  not  want  to  disguise  the  difficulty  of  all  this,  nor  mean 
now  to  go  into  the  question,  what  is  the  test  of  rightness  of 
thoughts  or  what  is  the  meaning  of  that  limitation  of  it  which 
we  have  the  notion  of,  when  we  speak  of  its  being  according  to 
fact  and  truth,  and  which  makes  us  difference  it  from  visionary 
imagination.  Humian  scepticism  is  not  even  egoism,  but  is 
phenomenalism  enthroned  even  above  that :  I  have  been  only 
wanting  now  to  describe  my  first  difference  from  it. 

My  other  difference  is  on  the  subject  of  what  I  call  pheno- 
menalism, i.e.  on  the  notion  of  our  knowledge  of  the  spatial 
universe,  in  regard  to  which  I  think  in  a  manner  exactly 
opposite  to  the  Humian. 

The  point  of  the  Humian  notion  of  experience,  which  is 
only  one  way  of  expressing  the  mis-phenomenalist  or  positivist 
view,  is  the  isolatedness  of  particular  parts  of  our  knowledge, 
or  as  I  should  prefer  to  call  it,  its  fragmentary  character,  which 
I  have  already  slightly  alluded  to,  and  described  as  making  to 
me  a  view  inexpressibly  dreary  2. 

What  I  have  urged,  different  from  this,  is  that  the  pheno- 
menalist  is  one  view  of  nature,  partial,  what  I  have  called  an 
'  abstraction  V  a  view  which  we  may  very  well  take,  if  we  like 
it,  when  we  are  supposed  to  have  already  got  our  knowledge 
and  to  be  theorizing  about  it:  but  it  does  not  represent  the 
manner  in  which  we  get  our  knowledge,  or  in  which  we  should 
get   any   knowledge   at  all*.     It  is   in  this  respect  like  the 
description  of  abstraction  itself,  considered  as  a  faculty.     We 
compare  two  things  together,  see  what  they  have  in  common, 
attend  to  this  alone  for  certain  purposes,  or  abstract  it,  and 
describe  the  things  as  so  far  resembling  or  of  one  kind.     But 
in  reality  the  whole  process  of  knowledge  of  resemblances  and 
kinds  takes  place  by  means  of  generalization,  i.e.  is  the  develop- 
ment, by  fresh  knowledge  and  self-correction,  of  the  notion  of 
generic  identity  from  that  of  singular  or  particular  identity,  or 
the  changing  the  notion  of  singularness  (that  to  which  proper 
names  apply)  into  that  of  individualness,  subordination  to  a 


1  Expl.  p.  12. 
3  Expl.  2,  30. 


*^  Expl.  p.  15. 
*  Expl  45  foil. 


6—2 


ON  PHILOSOPHICAL  SCEPTICISM. 


[chap. 


84 

crenus,  upon  which  all  our  language  and  thought  depends, 
knowledge  gained  in  this  way  may  be  descmhed,  and  in  its 
higher  portions  augmented  by,  and  according  to,  what  we 
call  'abstraction.'  So  as  to  phenomenalism.  There  is  no 
harm  in  describing  knowledge  as  man's  actual  acquaintance 
with  nature,  so  far  as  it  goes,  which  is  the  point  of  the  notion  of 
experience.  It  is  in  this  view  itself  an  irregular,  partly  accidental 
fact,  acquaintance  with  one  fact  of  nature  and  not  with  another, 
the  acquaintance  having  nothing  to  do  with  any  relation 
between  them.  But  man  came  to  his  knowledge  by  the  process 
of  thinking  about  nature,  and  imagining  all  sorts  of  relations 
between  the  facts.  This  is  the  cogitantia  or  thinkingness  which 
I  spoke  of,  and  which  is  the  great  fact :  the  actual  communi- 
cation with  nature  or  experience  of  it  represents  a  part  of  this, 
but  only  a  part,  and  is  a  subordinate  fact. 

Professor  Fraser  seems  to  put  together,  as  belonging  to  one 
manner  of  thought,  an  egoist  scepticism— or  the  supposition 
that  all  that  we  call  our  knowledge  is  possibly  only  a  vam 
imagination,  since  we  have  no  means  of  testing  the  truth  of  it, 
taken  on  the  whole,  and  no  means  even  of  knowing  that  one 
man's  thought,  as  thought  or  consciousness,  is  the  same  as 
another  s— and  an  experiential  and  phenomenalist  scepticism, 
or  the  supposition  that  all  that  we  call  our  knowledge  is  certain 
isolated  and  fragmentary  bits  of  chance  experience,  giving  us 
no  entire  views,  and  nothing  satisfactory  to  the  intelligence. 
The  two  views  seem  to  me  not  at  all  connected.     The  Humian 
scepticism,  such  as  it  is,  belongs  to  the  latter:  the  description 
of  knowledge,  on  this  view,  does  not  even  go  so  far  as  to  allow 
it  to  be,  in  the  last  resort,  mir  impression.     The  egoist  view,  as 
against  this,  is  a  step  away  from  scepticism.     There  we  have  at 
least  an  immediate  and  real  knowledge  of  what  relates  to  our- 
selves, and  proceed  by  means  of  this  to  knowledge,  or  interpret 
this  into  knowledge  of  fact  independent  of  us.     The  view,  so  far 
as  it  is  scepticism,  must  be  so  in  virtue  of  the  supposition,  that 
then  it  is  only  what  relates  to  ourselves  we  are  really  certain  of: 
the   rest  may  be  mere   imagination.     Sir  William    Hamilton 
seems  to  aim  at  making  the  actual  world  of  matter  almost 
what  I  might  call  a  part  of  ourselves  by  calling  our  knowledge 


vin.] 


ON  philosophical  scepticism. 


85 


of  it  consciousness.  I  do  not  particularly  quarrel  with  the  use 
of  the  word  consciousness  for  all  our  knowledge;  and  think 
that  possibly  it  might  be  useful  against  that  localization^ 
of  the  mind,  when  we  are  speaking  from  the  point  of  view  of 
knowledge  or  consciousness,  which  falsifies  so  much  psychology. 
In  my  view  we  are  quite  as  conscious  of  the  sun  as  we  are  of 
the  image  on  the  retina,  or  of  anything  in  our  bodies  un- 
accompanied either  with  will  or  with  pleasure  and  pain.  We 
may  mean,  by  consciousness  of  anything  beyond  ourselves,  either 
the  interpretations  of  the  will  and  of  pleasure  and  pain,  on 
particular  occasions,  or  we  may  mean  the  whole  fabric  of  know- 
ledge into  which  these  develope :  but  whatever  we  mean,  as 
soon  as  we  speak  of  consciousness  of  anything  beyond  ourselves, 
we  have  lost  all  value  of  the  word  consciousness.  It  seems  to  me 
the  same  thing  as  if  I  should  use  the  above  expression,  *  I  am 
conscious  of  the  sun,'  (meaning  that  my  knowledge  of  it  is 
really  a  mental  presence  at  it  in  virtue  of  the  communication, 
through  the  intervention  of  light,  between  the  matter  of  which 
it  is  composed  and  my  body  or  sensive  frame)  as  constituting 
a  claim  to  be  believed  if  I  should  go  on  to  assert  that  the  sun 
consisted  of  fire,  or  of  water,  or  what  not.  I  am  conscious  of 
just  -yhat  I  know,  and  of  no  more.  And  so  it  is  as  to  the 
external  world  in  general. 

I  go  on  now  to  the  problem  of  the  egoist  scepticism  which 
consists,  as  I  understand  it,  in  the  asking  ourselves  the  question, 
How  do  I  know  but  that  all  I  think  I  know  is  mere  imagination 
on  my  part,  possibly  ungrounded  ?  The  answer  will  probably 
be,  I  can  only  know  this  by  hanging  it  on  to  fact  of  some  kind : 
showing  it  to  be  true,  and  showing  it  to  be  in  conformity  with 
fact,  are  the  same  thing.  But  what  fact?  When  we  are 
speaking  of  it  as  a  whole,  it  is  no  use  showing  it  to  be  in 
conformity  with  phenomenal  fact,  i.e.  with  the  facts  of  the 
universe  as  I  understand  them  :  of  course  it  is  thisy  because 
this  is  but  it:  the  notion  of  truth  being  conformity  of  this 
kind  with  fact,  may  do  for  particulars,  so  far  as  we  can  apply 
it,  but  not   for   knowledge   as  a   whole.     The   value   of   the 


Expl.  88,  97. 


86 


ON  PHILOSOPHICAL  SCEPTICISM. 


[chap. 


supposition  that  the  phenomenal  universe  exists  is  the  thing 
in  question:  it  is  no  use  supposing  then  that  its  existence, 
the  very  thing  in  question,  is  the  fact  by  which  the  supposition 
is  to  be  tried.  But  is  not  this  Sir  William  Hamilton's  con- 
ception of  the  problem  ? 

The  problem  is  this.  The  existence  of  the  material  or 
phenomenal  world  may  be  disputed,  for,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
it  has  been  disputed.  Is  this  disputability  and  disputation 
wrong,  and  can  we  fix  the  certainty  of  its  existence  on  grounds 
indisputable?  It  is  to  be  observed,  that  we  have  no  right 
d  priori  to  assume  that  great  interests  are  involved  in  the 
proving  it  indisputable :  the  destruction  of  such  scepticism  as 
there  may  be  in  the  matter,  will  be  effected  not  by  the  proving 
the  indisputability,  but  by  the  discovery  of  the  truth  on  the 
subject,  whether  it  be  the  indisputability  or  the  opposite.  The 
philosophers  whom  I  am  now  speaking  of  never  seem  exactly 
to  understand  their  position,  whether  they  are  philosophers  or 
doctrinal  teachers.  They  waver  between  the  position,  'The 
existence  of  things  is  an  undoubted  fact — it  is  a  misfortune 
that  you  doubt  it — we  will  show  that  you  ought  not  to  do  so ' — 
and  the  position,  'So  far  as  the  existence  of  things  is  dis- 
putable—and it  is  disputable,  if  it  is  ever  with  any  reason 
disputed — it  is  not  an  undoubted  fact,  and  you  are  right,  or 
quite  at  liberty,  to  doubt  it.  We  will  endeavour  to  show 
however  that  it  is  indisputable,  and  that  there  has  not  been 
reason  in  the  disputing  it.' 

The  position  of  Dr  Reid  and  of  any  philosopher  like  him, 
who  speaks  of  common  sense  or  of  anything  of  that  kind,  is  I 
suppose  the  former.  They  offer  us,  in  various  ways,  a  reason 
why  we  should  believe  the  thing,  in  the  fact  that  we  do, — as  if 
(mr  position  were  this.  We  know  (how  ?)  the  thing  is  so,  and 
we  want  to  believe  it,  but  we  cannot  succeed  in  doing  this. 
They  say.  It  is  common  sense  to  believe  it:  you  cannot  help 
doing  so :  everybody  does.  We  say.  We  do  not  want  persuasion 
to  believe  it,  but  we  want  to  know  that  we  are  doing  right  in 
believing  it, — how  does  your  common  sense  ensure  this  ? 

I  cannot  see  that  in  substance  Sir  William  Hamilton  alters 
the  view  of  the  problem  from  this. 


vin.] 


ON  philosophical  scepticism. 


87 


If  we  propose  to  ourselves  the  problem  at  all, — and  the 
doing  so  is  not  of  my  suggestion,  for  I  make  no  assertion  as  to 
its  solubility,  and  in  this  non-assertion,  if  anywhere,  must  be 
the  scepticism — what  we  must  find  is,  something  known  to 
be  existent  with  a  higher  knowledge  or  more  indisputable 
certainty  than  that  with  which  we  know  the  phenomenal 
world  to  be  existent,  and  then  an  indisputable  identity  of  this 
latter  existence  with  the  former,  or  dependence  of  the  one  on 
the  other.  /  should  say,  we  are  certain  of  the  existence  of  the 
phenomenal  world  in  so  far  as  we  recognize  m,ind  in  it — mind, 
the  type  and  test  of  all  existence  to  us. 

Egoist  scepticism  consists  in  denying  objective  value  to 
what  we  call  our  consciousness,  not  in  denpng  objective 
reality,  so  far  as  consciousness  can  give  such,  to  the  phenomenal 
world.  To  suppose  consciousness  to  give  us  our  own  reality 
immediately^,  and  that  of  the  phenomenal  world  mediately,  is 
no  scepticism :  on  this  I  have  spoken.  Supposing  conscious- 
ness did  give  us  the  second  in  the  same  manner  as  the  first 
all  that  would  result  would  be  that  we  might  be  driven  from 
egoist  (or  mis-Cartesian)  scepticism  to  Humian.  That  is,  this 
would  be  read  by  some  thus,  that  the  first  is  given  us  in  the 
same  manner  as  the  second,  and  that  therefore  our  knowledge 
of  our  own  existence  is  only  phenomenal, — similar  to  the 
knowledge  we  have  of  the  existence  of  a  horse  or  a  dog.  It 
is  I  suppose  some  supposition  of  this  kind  which  makes  such 
typical  metaphysics  as  Sir  William  Hamilton's  not  unacceptable 
to  phenomenalists.  Sir  William  Hamilton  would  put  the  ex- 
ternal world,  as  a  thought,  on  a  level  with  the  thought  of 
ourselves.  Mr  Mill  would  put  the  thought  of  ourselves,  as  a 
phenomenon,  on  a  level  with  the  fact  of  the  spatial  existence 
of  anything  (whatever  we  like).  Against  both  I  maintain 
egoism,  not  however  I  hope  sceptical,  viz.  that  we  know  our- 
selves to  exist,  and  believe  the  spatial  universe  and  our  corporeal 
selves  as  a  portion  of  it  to  exist  also ;  and  that  if  we  are  to 
show  that  the  second  of  these  mental  operations  is  equally 
valid  with  the  first,  which  I  do  not  the  least  deny,  it  must  not 
be  by  the  process  of  saying  that  they  are  the  same. 

1  Expl.  118  foU. 


88 


ON   PHILOSOPHICAL  SCEPTICISM. 


[chap. 


viil] 


ON  philosophical  scepticism. 


89 


1 


\4- 


I. 


Perhaps  the  present  researches  about  Plato,  may  tell  us 
something  about  this  scepticism,  the  problem  and  difficulty  of 
which,  so  far  as  I  understand,  Plato  did  see— but  I  will  not 

touch  on  this. 

In  my  view,  there  lies  at  the  root  of  all  knowledge  the 
question  what  knowledge  is,  and  what  is  its  relation  with  that 
which,  if  there  is  an  absolute  region,  may  perhaps  be  its  great 
*  co-notion,'  existence,  but  which  to  us,  is  a  derived,  and  there- 
fore  so   far   a   subordinate,   notion.      Here   is   the   region   in 
which  we  may  discuss  about  scepticism,  if  the  term  has  any 
meaning   in  this  rare  atmosphere:    below  this,  I  accept  the 
notion  or  notions  of  existence  fully,  as  I  understand  them  given 
to   us— thinking -existence,   consciousness — thought -existence, 
phenomena.      If   there   is   anything   above  what   I   thus   call 
phenomena,  which  nevertheless  we  can  think  about  and  may 
think  as  existent,  it  must  be  in  virtue  of  its  associating  itself 
with  our  thinkingness  by  a  sort  of  sympathy,  if  I  may  use 
the  term,  by  means  of  which  we  communicate  with  that  higher 
existence,  just  as  by  our  special  intellectual  and  sensive  organi- 
zation we  communicate  with   phenomena.     If  we  know  God 
otherwise   than   through   phenomena,   it    is   by   sympathy   or 
communication   with    his   thought.     If  we   have   a  notion   of 
ideals  of  action  above  phenomena,  it  must  be  on  account  of 
the  association  of  them  with  our  thinkingness,  our  liberty,  our 
activity — with  our  thinking,  as  distinct  from  the  results  of  our 

thought. 
'  I  mention  this  here  however  only  to  say,  that  the  way  to 
avoid  what  /  should  call  scepticism  is  to  give  their  full  value 
to  the  two  notions  of  existence  which  I  have  described,  without 
puzzling  the  former  with  phenomenalism,  or  the  latter  with 
metaphysics.  It  is  no  argument  against  the  former  that  we 
cannot  fit  it  into  our  phenomenalist  speculations,  nor  does  it 
signify  to  the  latter  how  we  think  it:  there  is  no  need  to 
puzzle  it  (as  I  should  say)  by  notions  of  its  being  relative  only, 
and  a  sort  of  dress  of  an  unknowable  corpus  or  substratum. 
What  we  know  it  as,  or  hope  some  time  possibly  to  know  it  as, 
is  all  that  it  is.  It  is  oxygen,  hydrogen,  chemical  elements, 
light,  heat,  and  much  more,  occupying  room  and  position  in 


indefinite  space,  the  parts  moved  about  by  various  forces, 
arranged  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  various  kinds  of  things 
and  even  of  semi- thinking  beings,  and  all  acting  together  and 
interacting  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  us  talk  of  law,  order, 
system ;  while  with  just  as  much  reason  we  might  go  on  to  talk 
of  purpose,  meaning,  principle,  and  still  on,  till  we  put  the 
supposed  whole  together  and  call  it  universe,  forming  our 
notion  of  a  whole  of  it  after  some  analogy  with  our  notion  of 
particular  systems,  arrangements,  organisms.  Such  is  the 
thing  or  things,  not  which  we  have  to  understand  (except  so 
far  as  we  are  always  going  on  learning)  according  to  the 
perverse  idea  of  the  Lockian  psychology;  but  which  we  have 
come  to  understand  as  thing  or  things,  and  our  having  come 
thus  to  understand  them  is  thei?^  being,  the  reason  why  we  call 
them  thing  or  things.  We  have  indeed  come  to  understand 
them,  in  a  considerable  degree,  by  means  of  notions,  and 
therefore  by  the  employment  of  terms,  very  different  from 
those  given  above  as  what  we  have  found.  We  have  thought 
and  talked,  and  very  likely  with  great  utility,  about  substances, 
qualities,  and  much  besides.  But  these  are  only  logical  notions, 
what  the  mind  forms  or  uses  in  the  process  of  coming  to  the 
knowledge  by  which  we  describe  the  universe  :  they  belong  to 
what  I  have  called  a  different  world  from  the  above  constituents 
of  the  universe:  they  are  creatures  of  the  mind  in  quite  a 
different  sense  from  that  in  which  the  others  are — temporary 
or  mediate  creatures.  Supposing  we  knew  all  these  con- 
stituents (so  to  call  them)  of  the  universe,  there  is  nothing 
more  to  know  in  this  direction,  not  even  though  we  were 
omnipotent  in  intellect  and  possessed  of  every  variety  of 
sensive  organization  that  any  creature  has  had  or  ever  can 
have :  the  unknown  and  supposedly  unknowable  substratum  is 
what  we  have  been  knowing  and  learning  all  the  time  by 
learning  its  qualities,  and  as  we  learn  them,  calling  them  by 
the  names  of  the  above  constituents. 

But  may  we  not  be  wrong  in  thinking  that  these  are  the 
constituents  of  the  universe  ?  there  is  certainly  a  reality  in- 
dependent of  our  thought,  because  we  may  think  wrongly  and 
call  things  by  wrong  names. 

No  doubt :  and  the  wrongness  may  be  particular  or  general : 


ifl 


90 


ON   PHILOSOPHICAL  SCEPTICISM.  [CHAP.  VIII. 


i| 


r: 


meaning  by  particular  anything  short  of  general.     We  may 
wrongly  apprehend  any  physical  fact  in  comparison  with  the 
rest :  or  we  may  wrongly  apprehend  what  physical  fact  means. 
The  latter  belongs  to  the  whole  question  which  I  have  now 
been  treating  of:  the  former  is  what  good  phenomenalist  logic 
is  intended  to  prevent.     I  have  before  alluded  to  the  tests  of 
phenomenalist  truths-  when  we  conceive  the  universe  as  we  do 
conceive  it,  and  are  persuaded  we  are  right  in  doing  so,  we 
mean,  that,  for  instance,  if  there  was  to  be  another  deluge 
without  a  Noah,  and  with  a  destruction  of  all  record  of  the 
past,  and  the  human  race  had  to  begin  life  again,  it  would 
think  about  the  universe  in  substance  as  we  think  about  it,  and 
call  things  by  corresponding  names;  that  again,  in  a  manner 
which  Mr  Mill  has  admirably  illustrated,  our  knowledge  will 
answer  for  action,  or  we  can  predict:  we  mean  perhaps  other 
things,  whether  the  same  in  substance  as,  or  similar  to,  these. 
But   we   do  not    need   a   reference   to   any   independent    fact 
which  we  can  test  our  knowledge  by.     This  is  the  mistaken 
Lockian  psychology  again,   and  I  believe,  the   whole   mystery 
of  Sir   William   Hamilton's  unknowable  substratum.      When 
Locke   says,   an   idea  is  right   if    it   agrees   with   the   thing, 
what  purpose  is  served  by  the  language?     For  what  is  the 
thing  to  us  except  the  idea  which  we  have  of  it,  or,  in  other 
words,  except  what  we  conceive  it  to  be,  and  what  then  is  the 
meaning  of  the  rightness  of  the  idea  of  the  thing  being  some- 
thing to  be  tested  and  examined  ?     If  we  can  know  the  facts  in 
any  independent  way,  so  as  to  be  able  to  test  the  notions  which 
we  form  of  them  by  the  facts  themselves,  what  is  the  good  of 
forming  the  notions,  if  the  facts  are  already  known?     This 
Janus-faced  knowledge,  which  is  no  knowledge,  I  have  already 
in  some  degree  spoken  of     As  I  have  said  the  mystery  of  the 
unknowable  substratum  seems  to  me  to  be  here.     The  fact  is 
considered  to  be  unembraceable  by  the  notion,  because  it  has 
got  to  be  kept  free  from  the  notion  in  order  to  serve  to  test  the 
notion  by,  after  the  extraordinary  process  which  I  have  just 
tried  to  describe, 

I  think  however  I  have  said  enough  about  this. 

1  Expl.  12. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

MR   HERBERT    SPENCER. 

Mr  Herbert  Spencer's  book^  contains  what  seems  to  me  on 
the  whole  a  more  correct  account  of  the  process  of  perception 
and  understanding  than  any  other  I  know,  and  it  contains  what 
at  least  is  a  most  admirable  account  of  the  progress  of  life  and 
of  its  environment.  But  for  all  this,  I  cannot  see  that  his 
philosophic  system,  or  the  main  line  of  his  argument,  is  any 
other  than  what  we  may  call  a  new  form  of  that  doctrine  of 
a  sort  of  pre-established  harmony^  between  intelligence  and 
things,  which  is,  in  fact,  almost  the  only  doctrine  possible  when 
we  assume  them  both  independently. 

In  spite  of  all  Mr  H.  Spencer's  clearness  of  view  as  to  the 
error  of  what  I  have  called  the  wrong  psychology,  I  think  it 
must  be  said  that  his  view  is  the  same  as  that  of  Locke  with  a 
wider  application ^     He  investigates  not  how  man,  but  how 

^  Principles  of  Psychology,  ed.  1,  1855,  ed.  2,  1870. 

2  Expl.  100. 

3  Mr  Spencer  is  perfectly  aware  of  the  difficulty  of  his  position  and  most 
correctly  sees  the  wrong  psychology  in  others. 

But  for  himself? 

He  says,  p.  322 :  All  phenomena  of  intelligence  are  changes  of  states  of 
consciousness. 

One  state  of  consciousness  which  invariably  exists  is  that  we  are  *an 
organism  placed  in  the  midst  of  objects.' 

Hence  we  may  say,  calling  it  *  a  fact,'  that  we  are  so. 

We  cannot  become  conscious  except  through  the  changes  produced  in  us 
by  these  objects. 

Only  through  changes  can  it  (the  organism)  be  made  conscious  of 
objects,  and  only  out  of  changes  can  be  constructed  its  knowledge  of  them. 


92 


MR  HERBERT   SPENCER. 


[chap. 


IX.] 


MR   HERBERT   SPENCER. 


93 


m 


intelligence,  comes  by  the  ideas  of  things,  (to  use  the  Lockian 
phrase) :  in  his  own  phrase,  how  consciousness,  as  a  part  of  life, 
becomes  historically  (or  in  the  course  of  experience)  what  we 
6nd  it  now  in  man  and  in  animals :  and  he  describes  with  great 
care  the  nature  and  properties  of  such  consciousness:   he  es- 
tablishes  satisfactorily,   in    his   own   view,   that    in   whatever 
degree  or  manner  it  exists  there  is  always  a  correspondence 
between   it   and  — what   /   should  call— external   things   and 
facts,— what  he  calls,— co-existences  and  sequences.     This  is 
all  that  we  can  mean  by  truth,  and  as  consciousness  advances 
in   the   great   universal   progress   of  life    which    Mr    Spencer 
conceives,  it  tells  us  ever  more  and   more  of  truth.      Still  I 
cannot  see   that   the    difficulty    of  the    wrong  psychology   is 
even  here  avoided.     That  difficulty  arises  from  the  fact,  that 
I,  the  thinker,  am  on  one  side  only  of  the  antithesis  between 
thoughts  and  things,  between  consciousness  on  the  one  side 
and  environment,  or  the   universe,  on  the  other,  and   cannot 
put    myself   on    both    sides.      Things    correspond    with   con- 
sciousness, and  consciousness   with   things:  but   how  are   we 
to  know  that  this   correspondence  is  not  identity,  and  that 
we   mean   by  'things'   something   more   than    consciousness? 
Mr   Spencer   meets   this   by   assuming   in   the   first  instance, 
as  the  definition  or  universal  character  of  the  true,  that  it  is 
that  of  which  we  cannot  conceive  the  contrary,  and  then  saying, 
that  the  belief  in  the  independent  existence  of  sensible  things 
is  a  belief  which  has  this  character,  and  therefore  that  what  is 
thus  believed  (viz.  the  existence  of  the  things),  may  be  assumed 
from  the  first  as  fact.     The  difficulty  surely  here  is  the  same  as 
in  Locke,  viz.,  how  far,  when  this  is  assumed  to  begin  with,  we 


Are  there  not  here  two  stages 

(1)  the  consciousness  which  knows  (or  by  what  we  know)  that  we  are  an 
organism  placed  in  the  midst  of  objects,  and 

(2)  the  ♦  organismal '  consciousness  which  knows  the  objects  by  means  of 

the  changes  they  produce  in  it  ?  ^ 

And  if  so,  our  cognitions  of  '  the  primary  properties  of  things '  (p.  66)  are 
subjectively  '  preorganismal,'  i.e.  are  anterior  to,  or  contemporaneous  with,  not 
posterior  to,  our  perception  or  knowledge  of  things  by  means  of  our  organism, 
or  as  organized  beings.     G. 


can  be  said  to  have  a  bond  fide  account  of  the  genesis  of  know- 
ledge. If  this  is  supposed  to  be  an  innate  idea,  a  primary 
intuition,  a  supposition  which  is  a  necessary  condition  for  the 
existence  of  any  knowledge,  well  and  good :  then  its  genesis  is 
no  matter  of  investigation  as  a  part  of  history  or  experience, 
and  its  consideration,  and  that  of  any  kindred  intuitions,  if 
there  are  such,  must  belong  to  a  branch  of  philosophy  in  which 
this  will  not  help  us.  But  in  reality,  to  the  eyes  of  philosophy, 
if  this  cardinal  thought,  supposition,  imagination  or  cognition 
(whatever  it  is)  is  left  out,  because  preliminarily  assumed, 
the  evolution  of  mental  experience  is  of  small  consequence. 
Mr  Spencer's  account  of  the  growing  correspondence  between 
life  and  consciousness  on  the  one  side,  and  the  things  and 
facts  of  the  universe  on  the  other  is,  under  all  circumstances, 
full  of  physical  and  physiological  interest :  but  its  main  philo- 
sophical interest  must  arise  from  the  supposition  of  its  being 
a  sketch  of  the  way  in  which  we,  intelligent  beings,  viewed  as 
having  one  continuous  history,  have  (in  Mr  Bain's  language^) 
*  come  to  think '  as  we  have  of  the  universe,  or  of  the  state  of 
things  to  which  we  understand  ourselves  to  belong,  as  a  whole, 
in  regard  to  its  existence  and  relation  to  us.  Qan  it  be  said  to 
possess  such  a  philosophical  interest  ?  Is  it,  more  than  that  of 
Locke,  a  genuine  and  bond  fide  history  of  our  thought  ?  In 
Mr  Spencer's  language,  there  is  an  indissoluble  cohesion  be- 
tween the  notion  which  we  express  by  the  term  '  independent 
existence,'  and  the  notion,  'objects  of  our  perception.'  This 
cohesion  has  been  brought  about  in  the  course  of  intelligential 
experience ;  so  that  now  intelligence  cannot  think  otherwise : 
it  is  a  law  of  intelligence :  the  manner  of  its  bringing  about 
has  been  that  fact  independent  of  intelligence  has  gradually, 
so  to  speak,  impressed  itself  upon  intelligence:  external  co- 
existences and  sequences  have  first  existed,  and  then  this 
cohesion  corresponding  with  them  has  in  course  of  experience 
come  to  exist.  Is  there  not  here  the  same  circulaHty  that  I 
supposed  in  Locke  ?  the  same  in  fact  which,  in  its  more 
flagrant  forms,  Mr  Spencer  is  so  well  aware  of  and  so  jealous 

1  See  quotation  in  Expl.  p.  xliii. 


94 


MR   HERBERT  SPENCER. 


[CHAP. 


■ 


of?  We  assume  the  cohesion  as  giving  us  truth  (such  truth  as 
we  can  have  any  notion  of)  in  virtue  of  its  being  such  cohesion. 
It  seems  to  me  that  what  Mr  Spencer  wants  to  make  out  is, 
that  though  it  is  assumed  in  the  first  instance  as  giving  truth, 
because  we  cannot  help  thinking  thus,  yet  its  real  and  proper 
claim  to  be  truth  is  that  it  is  in  correspondence  with  fact, 
which  he  then  proceeds,  by  his  sketch  of  intelligential  history 
or  experience,  to  show.  It  is  because  its  claim  to  be  truth  is 
in  his  view  this,  not  properly  the  former  (as  I  understand)  that 
he  is  able  to  consider  that  all  knowledge,  not  excepting  these 
first  and  fundamental  notions,  is  derived  from  experience.  But 
ought  he  not  to  see  that  the  truth  in  the  second  case  (such 
truth  as  there  is)  is  derived  from,  and  dependent  on,  that  in  the 
first?  Unless  we  knew  first  by  intuition  (so  to  speak)  that 
there  were  things  or  fact,  a  deduction  of  the  way  in  which 
fact  by  degrees  impresses  itself  on  intelligence  is  moonshine: 
all  its  value  depends  upon  the  truth  of  the  intuition.  If  we 
are  afterwards  able  to  prove*  that  fact  impresses  itself  upon 
intelligence,  so  that  intelligence  in  supposing  the  existence  of 
fact  is  not  merely  imagining,  we  must  not  on  this  account 
say  that  our  knowledge  of  the  existence  of  fact  is  due  to 
this  (so-called)  experience.  We  had  it  from  intuition  before 
we  could  even  conceive  the  possibility  of  the  experience. 

Mr  Spencer's  opening  chapters  may  be  considered  an  ex- 
pansion of  Locke's  *when  our  senses  are  conversant  with 
external  objects,'  and  then  he  traces,  as  Locke  does,  but  in  a 
wider  field,  how  intelligence  becomes  possessed  of  (or  by)  its 
ideas  or  consciousnesses.  Simplicity,  then  complexity,  then 
simplicity,  of  a  kind,  again,  may  be  said  to  be  the  law  of 
them :  the  first  simplicity  followed  by  variation  ('  differen- 
tiation *  in  his  phrase),  expansion,  growth,  &c.,  and  then  again 
by  'integration'  (association,  composition,  the  construction  of 
wholes,  unities,  things)  becoming  simple  again.  The  difference 
between  Locke  and  Mr  Spencer  is  that  with  the  latter  all  is  a 
process:  activity  of  the  mind  is  not  much  a  part  of  his 
consideration :  and  thus,  while  the  wholes  or  notions  of  things 
and  their  relations,  formed  according  to  Locke  by  individuals, 
are  thought  of  chiefly  as  to  whether  they  are  true  or  false, 


IX.] 


MR  HERBERT   SPENCER. 


95 


conformable   or  not  with  things,  the  same  with  Mr  Spencer 
formed  by  intelligence  are  looked  at  (as  Locke  looks  on  his 
simple  ideas)  as  true   by  hypothesis.     I  think  then,  that  in 
spite    of  the   care    with    which   he   lays   down   the    position 
which  he  wishes  to  take,  Mr  Spencer  is  still  not  able  to  escape 
the   kind   of  *  circularity '  which  belongs  to  all  that   I  have 
called  the  wrong  psychology.     His  proceeding  is  a  very  bold 
application  of  the  positivist  or  historical  method,  in  this  way : 
truth   to  Its   is,   with    him,   what   I   have    ventured^    to    call 
*  incounterconceivableness ' :    this    incounterconceivableness    of 
certain  things  to  us  is  a  fact  of  our  present  nature,  a   fact 
which  has  had  a  historical  origin :  it  has  been  worked  in  us  by 
a  long  generic  experience.     But  let  us  examine  the  nature  of 
this  *  experience,'  and  see  if  there  is  not  in  it  that  ambiguity 
which  belongs  to  it  in  the  writing  of  almost  all  those  who 
make  much  of  the  word.     Let  us  compare  a  smaller  experience. 
We,  as  a  race,  we  will  say,  have  learnt  now  by  experience, 
i.e.  by  observation  of  things  and  thought  about  them,  that  the 
earth  turns  round  the  sun  and  not  the  sun  round  the  earth. 
When  we  use  this  language,  we  are  speaking  on  the  assumption 
that  things  exist  (i.e.  that  we  corporeally  exist  with  an  external 
world  around  us,  which  I  have  called  the  phenomenalist  as- 
sumption), and  speaking  on  this  assumption,  we  say  that  we 
have  found  out  by  experience  about  the  things  the  fact  which 
I  have  just  mentioned.     The  value,  necessity,  meaning  of  this 
assumption,   are   questions   not   of  the   physicist   but   of   the 
philosopher.     Philosophers  may  discuss,  as  they  do,  whether 
this  which  I  have  called  an  assumption  is  properly  so  called, 
or  whether  it   is  a   consciousness,   or   whether  it   is   a  mere 
imagination,  or  what  it  is :  the  experience  which  I  have  spoken 
of  remains  unaffected  by  all  this.     The  physicist  enters  upon 
his  investigations  at  a  later  stage :   '  Say  as  you  will,'  is  his 
language,  '  about  these  things  or  reality,  say  we  are  conscious 
of  it,  or  we  systematically  dream  it,  or  assume  it  in  order  to 
act  and  live — that  is  your  affair — /  say,  that  whatever  may  be 
the  fact  as  to  the  whole  nature  of  this  reality,  what  we  find  out 


1  Cf.  Expl.  218. 


96 


MR   HEBBERT  SPENCEB. 


[chap. 


as  to  the  particulars  of  it,  and  come  to  be  perfectly  certain  of, 
are  such  things  as  the  above-mentioned.  /  the  physicist,  call 
it  finding  out,  and  consider  the  particular  or  subordinate  truth, 
which  is  all  that  I  am  concerned  with,  to  depend  upon  actual 
experience  of,  i.e.  communication  with,  observation  of,  the 
things  themselves.  You  may  put  this  into  what  language  you 
please,  call  it  consistency  of  assumption,  system  of  dream, 
cohesion  of  consciousness— however  described,  it  is  true  in  its 
own  region,  and  I  claim  no  more.' 

The  '  experience '  then  of  the  physicist  holds  true  and  good, 
whatever  we  may  think  of  the  nature  of  reality  in  general : 
but  the  vast  generic  experience,  or  history  of  intelligence,  of 
Mr   Spencer,   does  not.     Berkleianism  does  not  interfere  the 
least  with  Newtonianism  :   nor  would  a  doctrine  like  that  of 
Boscovich  that  all  that  we  call  matter  is  really  some  kind  of 
force.   'The  sun'  and  'the  earth' would  each  have  their  meaning, 
though  we  might  think  with  the  philosophical  speculator  that, 
as  to  their  true  nature,  they  were  quasi-inspirations  in  our 
mind,  or  with  the  physical  speculator,  that  they  were  properly 
vast  Agglomerations  of  force.     True  experience  of  things  may 
change  its  language  or  verbal  exhibition  indefinitely  without 
losing   its   truth.     But  this  cannot  be  said  of  Mr  Spencer's 
experience    of    the   formation  of  thought   itself  from    things. 
'  Unrealize '  (more  properly  'derealize')  the  things,  and  we  have 
not  a  change  of  language,  but  a  vanishing  of  everything.     Not 
only  all  our  actual  thought,  but  all  our  power  to  think,  is 
supposed  to  be  produced  by  the  phenomenal  universe  as  we 
conceive  it.     Hence  the  value  of  all  the  experience  is  made  to 
depend  upon  an  initial  knowledge  of  things,  the  supposition  of 
which    renders  the  supposition  of  the  subsequent  experience 
superfluous   and   unnecessary:    only   that    the   knowledge    of 
things  is  made  to  reappear  at  the  end  of  the  experience  as  a 
result  of  it,  which  is  the  circularity  I  complain  of     If  we  know 
the  experience  to  be  an  experience  of  things,  and  build  our 
estimate  of  its   truth  and  value  upon   that,  then   we   know 
previously  that  there  are  things,  i.e.  the  great  groundwork  of 
our  thought  is  independent  of  our  experience.    Thus  experience 
is  wrongly  represented  as  giving  us  an  account  of  the  genesis 


IX.] 


MB   HEBBEBT  SPENCEB, 


97 


of  our  power  to  think,  or  of  the  great  features  of  our  knowledge, 
though  it  may  rightly  give  an  account  of  the  growth  of  our 
particular  knowledge.     If,  however,  Mr  Spencer's  '  experience,' 
though  he  may  describe  it  as  '  experience  of  things,'  (or  rather, 
in  his  own  language,  as  cohesion  of  consciousnesses  produced  by 
persistences  of  coexistence  and  sequence  in  what  is  around  us) 
is  still  not  to  be  supposed  to  depend  for  its  truth  and  value 
upon  the  reality  of  the  existence  of  the  things,  but  is  valuable, 
and  resulting  in  truth,  because  it  is  the  course  which  intelligence 
goes  through — in  this  case  experience  means  simply  mental 
experience,  change  of  thought  and  view,  and  we  have  that 
positivism  or  ' historicalism '  of  which  I  have  before  spoken*. 
Our  belief  in   the  *  incounterconceivables '   (as,  suppose,  that 
two   straight    lines   cannot    enclose   a   space)   is   then   really 
based   on  the   authority  of  all  past   intelligence.     I  suppose 
Mr    Spencer   would    have    us    believe  these,  (1)   because  we 
cannot  help  it :  (2)  if  this  does  not  satisfy  us,  because  our  not 
being  able  to  help  it  is  one  of  the  results  of  the  experience 
(i.e.  historical  change  or  supposed  progress)  of  all  intelligence 
since  intelligence  began :  and  (3)  if  we  are  to  go  further  still, 
because  the  above  mental  experience,  or  progress  of  intelligence, 
has  been  an  experience  of  things  or  has  been  produced  by  the 
actual  things  conforming  intelligence  gradually  and  more  and 
more  widely  to  them,  or  to  use  his  own  language,  developing 
'  cohesions  of  consciousness '  corresponding  to  their  persistencies 
of  coexistence  and  sequence — some  such  cohesions  being  abso- 
lutely indissoluble,  and  the  notions  belonging  to  such  cohesions 
being    the    'incounterconceivables.'     Now,    I    think   that    Mr 
Spencer  wants  us  to  believe,  say,  that  two  straight  lines  will 
not  inclose  a  space,  for  the  first  and  for  the  third  of  these 
reasons,  for  the  third  most,  the  main  value  of  the  first  being 
to  justify  and  make  possible  the  third :  one  of  the  things  which, 
Mr  Spencer  thinks,  we  cannot  help  believing  being  the  existence 
of '  things,'  or  an  external  world.     All  that  I  have  lately  been 
saying  is  to  the  effect  that,  as  it  seems  to  me,  in  spite  of  the 
singular  clearness   of   view  of  Mr   Spencer,  it  is   impossible 


1  Expl.  p.  xviii. 


M. 


98 


MR  HERBERT  SPENCER. 


[chap. 


IX.] 


MR   HERBERT  SPENCER. 


99 


i 


that  the  intuUimism  (so  to  call  it)  of  the  first  reason  and  the 
experientialism  of  the  last  can  go  together :  and  since  they  each 
vitiate  the  other,  any  who  derive  from  Mr  Spencers  book  a 
clpar  and  single  view  will  in  effect  come  to  the  middle  reason- 
the  positivist.     In  the  progress  of  universal  intelligence  we 
have  come  to  think  as  we  have :  the  habitual  thought  of  the 
most  advanced  intelligence  is  what  we  call  '  truth.     It  is  no 
use  saying  about  this  that  we  cannot  conceive  any  one  thinking 
otherwise.     Since  we  have  come  historically  to  think  so,  the 
thinking  not  so  must  be  as  a  matter  of  fact  concewable  however 
absurd.    Nor  is  it  any  use  saying  on  the  other  hand  that 
our  thought   or  what  we    call   truth   is  in   conformity  with 
things:  the  fact  is,  things,  so  far  as  we  can  conceive  them  are 
in  conformity  with  it.  so  that  the  other  statement  is  merely  a 
truism.    We  have  therefore  to  rest,  as  facts,  in  our  '  cohesions 
of  consciousness,'  nor,  as  to  the  notion  of  truth,  can  we  get  any 
further  than  that '  so  intelligence  now  thinks." 

Mr  Spencer  speaks  very  quietly  about  what  he  calls  the 
experience-hypothesis,'  as  if  it  were  a  something  well-known  to 
everybody,  and  as  to  the  meaning  of  which  there  could  be  no 
possible  uncertainty.  What  I  have  said  as  to  the  ambiguity  of 
the  term  '  experience '  may  throw  some  doubt  upon  this  suppo- 

sition.  .  ,        i.u     •«» 

The  most  general  meaning  of  '  the  expenence-hypothesis 

seems   to   me  to  be,  the   supposition   that   the  earher    more 

rudimentary,  more  fundamental  processes  of  the  mmd  (so  to 

call  them  just  now)  are  to  be  explained  and  described  after 

the  analogy  of  the  later  and  more  particular  ones,  which  we 

can  to  a  certain  extent  follow  and  understand.     Thus  we  have 

found   out  by  experience,  we  mil  say,  that  the  earth  turns 

round  the  sun :  we  have  had  experience  of  the  earth  and  sun, 

and  have  found  out  that  this  is  their  mutual  relation  m  respect 

of  movement :  we  might  a  priori  have  supposed  it  would  be 

otherwise,  in  fact  men  once  did  so  :  this  however  is  what  we  now 

find  to  be  the  ca^e.   Now  the  point  of  the  expenence-hypothesis, 

the  sting  and  value  of  the  phrase,  is  in  the  supposition  that  the 

fundamental  notions,  which  lie  at  the  root  or  stand  at  the 

beginning  of  all  our  knowledge,-as  (say),  the  notion  that  there 


are  things  or  an  external  world  at  all, — are  arrived  at  in  a 
manner  which  may  be  considered  analogous  with  the  above. 
But  experience  of  the  above-mentioned  kind  is  of  necessity 
the  hanging  on  fresh  knowledge  to  previous:   it  supposes  a 
course  of  thought:    it  will   not   account   for   the   starting   of 
thought.     I  know  by  experience  that  nettles  sting :  i.e.  I  know 
by  experience  that  there  is  a  painful  sensation  possible  to  me 
called  stinging,  and  that  the  things  which  I  call  nettles  will 
produce  it.     The  first  of  these  is  the  mental  experience,  and 
derives  its  truth  simply  fi-om  itself:  if  I  feel  it,  it  is:  the  second 
is  the  experience  of  fact,  and  derives  its  truth  (such  as  it  has) 
from  the  reality  of  the  fact :  I  mean  by  it  that  I  know,  from 
my  feeling,  this  as  to  the  nettle,  that  it  has  something  about  it, 
prickles,  poisonous  juice,  some  power  or  quality,  which  causes 
its  contact,  in  a  manner  differing  from  that  of  other  plants,  to 
be  followed  by  the  sensation  of  stinging.     But  there  would  be 
no  meaning  in  saying,  not  only  I  have  the  experience  of  feeling 
stung  (the  mental  experience),  but  I  have  the  experience  of 
the  nettle  stinging  me  (the  experience  of  fact),  unless  I  had 
some  knowledge  of  the  nettle  previously  to,  or  otherwise  than 
by,  the  sensation  of  being  stung,  unless  I  saw  it,  or  handled  it, 
or  some  way  or  other  knew  there  was  such  a  thing.     When 
therefore  the  term  'experience'  is  applied  to  the  early  or  first 
steps  of  knowledge,  it  can  only  mean  mental  experience — the 
fact  that  we  feel  and  think,  or  change  our  thought  and  feeling, 
so  and  so.     It  appears  therefore  to  me  that  the  use  of  the  term 
experience  is  faulty,  when  we  are  said  to  know  by  experience 
that  there  are  things  or  an  external  world,  and  again,  building 
upon  this  knowledge,  to  know  by  experience  that   the  earth 
turns  round  the  sun.     Does  the  word  mean  the  same  in  these 
two  places  ?     If  it  does,  there  must  be  error  one  way :  either 
we  mean  by  experience  experience  of  fact,  and  then  rudimentary 
knowledge,  such  as  our  knowledge  that  there  are  things  or  an 
external  world,  must  be  supposed  to  have  the  same  guarantee 
(against  the  supposition  of  its  being  mere  dream  or  imagination) 
of  actual   hanging  on   to  previously  known   fact,  which  our 
particular  pieces  of  physical  knowledge  have :  or  else  we  mean 
by  experience  mental  experience  only,  and  then  we  come  to 

7—2 


100 


MR  HERBERT  SPENCER. 


[chap. 


the  special  positivism  which  I  spoke  of  a  short  time  since ;  and 
all  we  should  then  mean  by  saying  that  we  know  by  experience 
that  the  earth  tarns  round  the  sun  is  what  nobody  would  mean, 
viz.  that  this,  in  the  advance  of  human  intelligence,  is  what 
men  have  come  to  think,  and  being  the  last  birth  of  progressive 
intelligence,  it  must  be  the  truest.  If  however  the  word  does 
not  mean  the  same  in  the  two  places,  then  it  seems  to  me  that 
the  ambiguous  term  'experience'  had  better  be  disused,  and 
the  phrase  'experience-hypothesis'  is  both  unmeaning  and 
misleading. 

It  may  make  the  matter  clearer  if  I  put  down  here  very 
summarily  my  own  view:  all  our  knowledge  is  founded  upon 
certain  great  imaginations,  (so  first  to  call  them)  one  of  which 
is  the  conception  of  our  own  phenomenal  existence  in  a 
surrounding  phenomenal  universe,  or,  as  it  is  more  commonly 
called,  the  notion  of  things  and  of  an  external  world.  Is  this, 
which  I  have  thus  called  to  begin  with  an  imagination,  mere 
imagination,  or  something  more  than  imagination  ?  is  it  know- 
ledge ?  Or,  on  the  other  side,  is  it  something  less  than  a  mere 
(i.e.  perhaps  unfounded)  imagination  ?  is  it  an  imagination 
which  we  can  know  to  be  unfounded,  an  illusion  ?  Now  here 
it  seems  to  me  to  be  entirely  vain  to  think  we  are  giving  any 
tnistworthiness  to  these  early  and  fundamental  imaginations  by 
using  in  respect  of  them  terms  such  as  '  experience,'  '  acquired ' 
&c.,  which  we  use  in  respect  of  the  following  on  of  one  portion 
of  our  later  knowledge  to  another.  To  a  certain  degree,  though 
not  I  think  entirely,  the  proceeding  of  those  philosophers  whom 
Mr  Mill  would  call  intuitionists  is  the  same.  The  phenome- 
nalists  seek  to  rescue  the  great  imagination  above  mentioned 
from  being  mere  imagination  by  calling  it  'acquired,'  in  the 
same  way  as  we  acquire  our  knowledge  that  the  earth  moves 
round  the  sun.  It  is  a  similar  eflfort  which  is  made  on  the 
other  side  when  it  is  called,  with  significancey  an  intuition, 
i.e.  when  the  feeling  which  we  have  about  it  is  compared  with 
the  feeling  which  we  have  about  our  later  or  particular  sensation 
or  perception,  the  implication  being  that  it  is  communication 
with  an  object  independent  of  us,  whose  reality  is  shown 
to   us   by  this   communication.     These   primary   imaginations 


IX.] 


MR  HERBERT  SPENCER. 


101 


must,  it  seems  to  me,  in  some  manner  justify  themselves 
from  being  mere  imaginations,  for  no  comparison  of  them  with 
the  particular  steps  of  later  knowledge  can  so  justify  them. 

Mr   Herbert    Spencer    says    (Psychology,   p.    192*),    'The 
multiplied  phenomena  of  heat  are  resolvable  into  dynamical 
ones,... on   holding   a   thermometer  near    the    fire,    the    same 
agent  which  causes  in  the  hand  a  sensation  of  warmth  causes 
motion  in  the  mercury.'    We  are  here  trying,  if  I  may  so  express 
it,  to  strike  the  line  of  knowledge  in  the  middle  point  between 
thought  and  what  I  call  phenomenalism:  for  such  is  the  finding 
an  agent  which  will  produce,  on  the  one  side,  a  sensation  of 
warmth  to  consciousness,  and  on  the  other  side  this  motion  to 
matter,  body,  or  whatever  we  call  it.     My  doubt,  in  all  this  sort 
of  language,  is  as  to  the  use  of  the  word  '  produce.'     The  agent, 
as  Mr  Spencer  calls  the  heat,  is  a  sort  of  motion,  and  that  it 
should  produce  another  sort  of  motion  is  well :  but  its  production 
of  consciousness  must  be  a  different  sort  of  production.    Suppose 
by  production  we  mean  simple  antecedence  and  sequence,  as  I 
noticed  in  regard  to  Stewart :  then  we  destroy  the  significance 
of  the  other  '  production,'  of  motion  by  motion.     The  two  pro- 
ductions cannot  be  similar.     It  is  the  same  when  Mr  Spencer 
says  in  the  next  page^,  'A  certain  form  of  activity  in  the  object, 
is  the  efficient  cause  of  a  sensation  of  smell  in  the  subject.' 
All  this  logical  language,  'object,'  'subject,'  'efficient  cause,'  is 
what  I  am  jealous  of.     That  is  to  say,  though  there  is  no  harm 
in  using  it,  yet  the  only  way  in  which  I  can  understand  its 
force  is  by  resolving  it  into  two  co-ordinates,  what  it  means  in 
phenomenal   fact,  and  what  it  means   in   thought.     Activity 
(i.e.  1  suppose,  motion)  in  the  object  being  the  efficient  cause  of 
a  sensation  (i.e.  consciousness)  of  smell  in  the  subject,  is  what 
requires  much  consideration.     It  seems  to  me  that  we  are  not 
here  in  what  we  may  call  true  phenomenalism  :  we  have  got  a 
cause  causing,  in  a  manner  quite  out  of  relation  with  the  manner 
in  which  we  understand  causes  causing  in  proper  physics  or 
phenomenalism:  we  are  incorporating  into  physics  or  pheno- 
menalism something  which  has  no  business  in  it :  by  doing  so 


1  vol.  u.  p.  138,  ed.  2. 


2  ib.  p.  139. 


102 


MR  HERBERT  SPENCER. 


[chap. 


IX.] 


MR   HERBERT  SPENCER. 


103 


;> 


we  do  but  vitiate  our  phenomenalism,  and  puzzle  our  notion  of 
physical  causation. 

The  same  is  to  be  said  about  the  following^:  *The  subject 
undergoes  a  change  of  state,  determined  in  him  by  some 
external  agency  directly  or  indirectly  proceeding  from  an 
object.'  I  am  unable  to  understand  what  world,  as  I  should 
say,  these  logical  entities  belong  to.  They  are  sometimes 
personalized,  as  'subject'  is  here:  it  is  called  'him';  the 
'object'  here  apparently  is  an  actual  physical  thing:  then 
'  external '  to  him,  is  that  same  language  I  have  several  times 
commented  on.  In  my  view,  /  think,  feel,  do,  &c. :  on  the 
other  hand  the  physical  thing  acts  on  me  (if  we  like  so  to  call 
it)  through  'my'  corporeal  organization,  to  which  it  is '  external.' 

The  same  in  p.  195 2;  'Eyes,  ears,  nose,  and  the  diffused 
nervous  energy  through  which  temperature  is  appreciated,  are 
inlets  to  the  influences  of  objects  more  or  less  distant ;  and  the 
ability  that  distant  objects  have  thus  to  work  changes  in  us,  again 
exhibits  their  inherent  activity.'  Into  what  do  these  'inlets '  let 
'  the  influences  of  objects'?  When  the  influence  has  got  inside 
the  body  as  far  as  it  can  go,  what  then  ?  And  then  again,  '  the 
influence'  or  'activity'  of  the  object — how  is  the  activity  or 
influence  separated  from  the  object  ?  In  seeing,  what  com- 
municates with  our  physical  eye  is  light,  while  the  object  of 
our  sight  or  thought  is  the  sun,  say:  what  is  Mr  Spencer's 
'object,'  with  its  influence  and  activity? 

I  might  have  proceeded  to  examine  Mr  Spencer's  definition 
and  account  of  perception  in  p.  200  ^  and  some  of  the  same 
things  would  have  to  be  said.  It  is  a  complicated  state  of 
consciousness  made  up  of  many* :  among  them,  primarily,  '  the 
co-existence  in  time  of  the  contemplating  subject  and  the 
contemplated  object.'  So  far  I  go,  understanding  'object'  in 
my  own  way.  But  '  we  have  further  that  relative  position  of 
the  two  in  space  which  we  call  proximity.'  Here  the  position 
of  a  contemplating  subject  in  space,  as  I  said  on  a  passage  of 
Stewart,  is  what  I  cannot  understand,  except  with  the  previous 
conception  by  ourselves  (the  contemplating  subject)  of  ourselves, 


as  phenomenal  or  filling  space  so  as  to  be  capable  of  such 
position.  I  might  go  on  further  and  examine  all  Mr  Spencer's 
account,  much  of  which  I  might  adopt  as  mine,  and  should  be 
glad  to  be  able  to  express  it  so  well.  I  just  notice  this  beginning 
of  the  account,  because  it  shows  the  difference  of  view  at  starting. 
With  Mr  Spencer,  'the  contemplating  subject'  is  man  in  a 
spatial  universe  thinking  and  feeling:  'the  contemplated  object' 
is  a  tree,  say,  in  a  spatial  universe  transmitting  light  in  a 
particular  way  due  to  its  chemical  constitution  and  its  shape. 
To  him,  as  to  many  others,  the  associating  together,  in  one 
manner  of  thinking,  of  the  luminiferous  aether  with  thought 
or  consciousness  does  not  seem  more  remarkable  than  the 
association  of  it,  for  instance,  with  heat:  and  thought  or 
consciousness  is  a  phenomenon  in  and  of  the  spatial  universe 
as  light  and  heat  are.  Consequently,  the  contemplating 
subject,  the  subject  of  the  attributes  thought,  feeling,  &c., 
and  the  contemplated  object,  the  object  which  is  variously 
luminous,  branched,  green,  &c.  (i.e.  the  tree),  have  relative 
position,  and  there  is  a  relation,  as  between  two  phenomena, 
between  the  thought  or  feeling  on  the  one  side,  and  the  light, 
carbon,  &c.  on  the  other.    Here  we  differ. 


1  vol.  II.  p.  140,  ed.  2. 
3  ih,  p.  145  foU. 


«  ih.  p.  141. 
*  ib.  p.  146. 


CHAP.  X.] 


COMPARATIVE   PSYCHOLOGY. 


105 


CHAPTER  X. 

COMPARATIVE   PSYCHOLOGY.       MORELL   AND   SPENCER. 

All  the  various  lines  of  thought,  the  philosophy  of  the 
Human  Mind,  Real  Logic,  Real  Epistemology,  and  Psychology^, 
are  more  or  less  concerned  with  certain  scales,  or  logical  courses 
or  movements,  and  certain  progresses,  or  courses  or  movements 
in  time,  which  I  will  enumerate. 

There  is  the  scale  which  I  have  called  the  scale  of  sensation  2, 
or  the  intellectual  scale  which  passes,  if  we  view  it  subjectively' 
from  feelings  to  thoughts,  and,  if  we  view  it  objectively,  from' 
secondary  qualities  to  what  we  will  call  now  for  convenience 
'  ideas.'  This  scale,  if  we  looked  not  only  at  the  intellect,  but 
at  the  whole  living  being,  might  be  prolonged  downward  into 
feeling  which  has  nothing  of  an  intellectual  character  at  all, 
and  will  die  away  into  vital  action,  so  far  as  we  recognize  such,' 
of  which  consciousness  cannot  be  predicated  in  any  way.  The 
same  scale  might  perhaps  be  considered,  in  a  possible  prolonga- 
tion upwards,  to  embrace  '  ideas '  in  a  higher  view,  in  which  I 
shall  afterwards  speak  of  them. 

There  is  the  scale,  so  far  as  we  may  call  it  such,  with  which 
Comparative  Psychology  is  concerned,  the  long  gradation  of 
different  forms  of  life,  with  increasing  and  various  development 
of  intelligence.  Whether  the  forms,  which  we  compare,  are 
co-existent,  or  whether  we  bring  them  together,  so  far  as  we 
can  gain  knowledge  of  them  from  different  ages  of  the  world's 
history,  is  of  no  importance  as  a  mere  matter  of  time :   it  is 


*  See  above  ch.  i. 


Exj)l.  p.  107. 


only  of  importance  so  far  as,  in  the  secular  changes,  we  can  trace 
law,  growth,  and  development.  Or  perhaps  it  would  be  most 
correct  to  say  that  there  is,  at  this  present  time,  a  gradation 
of  co-existent  forms  of  life,  forming  the  present  'zoocosm^'  so 
to  call  it,  and  that  there  is  another  course  of  a  different  kind, 
which  may  be  a  gradation,  viz.  the  past  succession  of  such 
zoocosms. 

There  is  the  course  or  growth  of  knowledge  in  the  individual 
mind,  with  which  also  Comparative  Psychology  is  concerned, 
for  there  must  be  a  growth  of  it,  in  some  respects  analogous,  in 
each  animal,  so  far  as  it  is  possessed  of  mind.  This  is  a  process 
to  be  traced  as  a  matter  of  conjunct  observation  of  the  organiza- 
tion, and  experience  of  the  action  of  it  and  of  the  consciousness. 

There  is  the  course  or  growth  of  knowledge  in  the  race. 
This,  at  first  sight,  we  might  say  belonged  to  man  alone,  and 
was  out  of  the  region  of  Comparative  Psychology,  but  though 
this  may  be  so,  we  cannot  say  at  once  that  it  is,  and  indeed 
much  of  psychology  denies  it. 

Now  the  varieties  of  psychological  thought  consist  to  a 
great  degree  in  what  is  thought  about  one  or  another  of  these 
courses,  and  specially  of  their  relation  to  each  other. 

For  instance,  the  view  of  many  is  that  the  scale  of  sensation 
and  the  scale  of  life  (the  two  first  which  I  mentioned)  are  what 
I  may  call  virtually  the  same  scale,  and  that  each  step  of  it 
contains  (in  a  concentrated  form)  all  that  has  gone  before  it, 
that  man  e,g.  unites  in  himself  different  ways  of  living,  feeling, 
thinking,  &c.,  the  scale  being  cut  off,  for  lower  organizations, 
at  lower  points  of  it. 

Again,  the  opinion  of  many  is  that  the  scale  of  sensation 
and  the  progress  of  individual  knowledge  are  the  same,  the 
former  being  a  sort  of  logical  expression  of  the  latter,  which  is 
an  actual  fact  in  time,  or,  conversely,  the  latter  being  in  some 
way  a  simple  result  of  the  former. 

Psychologies  which  compare  together  in  various  manner 
these  different  scales  and  successions,  may  be  in  an  eminent 
degree  either  idealistic,  which  their  authors  would  perhaps  call 

*  Expl.  p.  253. 


106 


COMPARATIVE   PSYCHOLOGY. 


[chap. 


philosophical  J  or  experiential  and  observational,  which  their 
authors  would  probably  call  inductive. 

Taking  Mr  Morell's  book^  as  a  specimen  of  the  former,  and 
Mr  Herbert  Spencer's'^  of  the  latter,  I  will  shortly  observe  upon 
the  method  of  each. 

Mr  Morell  begins  with  a  view  of  the  zoocosm,  and  having 
arrived  in  this  at  man,  then  proceeds  (in  the  method  of 
an  analysis  of  consciousness  or  philosophy  of  the  human  mind) 
to  exhibit  the  scale  of  sensation,  in  successive  steps  of  sensation 
(in  the  sense  in  which  he  uses  the  term),  of  intuition,  repre- 
sentation, &c.  He  then  shows  to  how  great  an  extent,  in  his 
view,  this  scale  corresponds  both  with  that  of  the  zoocosm,  and 
with  the  two  successions  of  individual  and  humano-generic 
growth  of  knowledge :  i.e.  that  the  inferior  animals  live  a  life 
of  simple  sensation  (in  his  sense),  &c. ;  again  that  the  individual 
passes  through  successive  states  of  mind,  the  first  of  which  is  in 
the  main  sensation,  then  intuition,  &c.;  and  finally,  that  the 
race,  in  its  advance  in  knowledge,  passes  also  successively 
through  corresponding  stages. 

Mr  Herbert  Spencer  begins  with  an  analysis  of  the  action 
of  the  human  mind,  from  its  most  complicated  processes  to 
its  most  simple :  and  having  arrived  at  these  latter,  he 
recommences  with  an  exceedingly  elaborate  and  valuable 
synthesis,  as  he  calls  it,  or  examination  of  the  zoocosm  from  the 
bottom  (i.e.  from  the  simplest  organizations)  in  conjunction 
with  the  circumstances  of  the  universe  belonging  to  it  at  each 
stage,  or  in  other  words,  an  examination  of  the  relations  of  life, 
in  its  successive  steps,  to  its  environment,  till  we  come  to  the 
relation  of  human  life  to  its  environment,  a  part  of  which 
relation  is  human  knowledge. 

My  business  is  to  examine  the  points  of  view  thus  taken : 
and  I  will  say,  that  it  does  not  appear  to  me  that  in  reality 
any  unconfused  point  of  view  can  be  got  except  one  that  is 
really  phenomenalist,  or  one  that  is  really  logical. 

In  Mr  Morell's  method  there  seems  to  me  to  be  an 
unauthorized  change  of  point  of  view,  or  jump,  where  he  passes 

^  Elements  of  Psychology,  1853. 

«  Principles  of  Psychology,  ed.  1,  1855,  ed.  2,  1870. 


X.] 


MORELL  AND   SPENCER. 


107 


from  the  view  of  the  zoocosm,  which  view  is  simply  pheno- 
menalist, to  the  analysis  of  the  consciousness  of  man,  when  he 
arrives  at  him  in  his  place  in  the  zoocosm.  We  pass  all  at  once 
from  experiences  of  one  kind  (of  sight,  hearing,  &c.),  by  which 
we  become  aware  of  the  existence  of  a  variety  of  creatures,  to 
experiences  of  a  quite  dififerent  kind,  by  which  we  become 
aware  of  pleasures,  pains,  and  our  own  knowledge. 

In  Mr  Herbert  Spencer's  method  we  have,  in  an  elaborate 
form,  that  sort  of  circularity  which  I  have  alluded  to  in 
speaking  of  Mr  Mill's  phenomenalism  ^  and  which  it  is  difficult 
to  know  how  to  draw  conclusions  from.  In  the  gradational 
comparison  between  life  and  its  environment  we  come  at  last  to 
human  life  and  its  environment,  one  portion  of  the  relation 
between  which  is  human  knowledge:  but  I  do  not  see  how 
any  conclusions,  as  to  what  human  knowledge  really  is  (as,  e.g., 
that  it  is  habit),  are  to  be  drawn  from  what,  in  this  method 
of  investigation,  we  find  out  about  it;  because  just  as  much 
as  we  have  human  knowledge  here  at  the  end  of  our  investiga- 
tion, we  had  it  at  the  beginning  also,  and  the  examination  of 
the  manner  in  which  we  come  to  such  knowledge  as  we  have 
about  the  zoocosm,  is  as  important  a  matter  as  the  exami- 
nation what  light  the  investigation  of  this  zoocosm,  when  we 
have  to  come  to  know  it,  throws  upon  the  nature  of  our 
knowledge. 

The  great  point  as  to  comparative  psychology  is,  whether 
we  can  really  hang  on  human  knowledge,  as  we  appreciate 
it  by  consciousness,  to  the  various,  and,  we  will  suppose, 
graduated,  knowledges  of  the  inferior  animals,  as  we  appreciate 
them  by  observation.  It  seems  to  me,  that  a  more  methodized 
observation  of  the  kinds  of  knowledge  of  the  inferior  animals, 
than,  so  far  as  I  know,  has  ever  yet  been  made,  is  a  thing  very 
much  needed.  The  word  *  instinct '  is  one  of  those  unfortunate 
words  which  are  supposed  to  be  understood  by  all,  words  which 
are  more  fatal  impediments  to  the  advance  of  science  than 
almost  anything  can  be.  The  generic  varieties  of  knowledge 
(observation  and  quasi-reasoning)  in  different  sorts  of  animals 


1  ExjpL  162. 


108 


COMPARATIVE   PSYCHOLOGY. 


[chap. 


are  so  peculiar,  that  there  seems  to  me  to  need  a  great  deal 
more  study  of  them,  before  anything  of  the  nature  of  a 
gradation  can  be  admitted.  The  most  convenient  present 
supposition,  I  have  always  thought,  in  respect  of  the  relation 
between  brute  intelligences  and  the  human,  is  the  assumption 
that  the  human  intelligence  is  typical  and  that  the  generic 
animal  intelligences  are  variations  from  this  type,  in  a  manner 
answering  to  what,  in  orgaDization,  is  abortion  of  some  portions 
with  special  development  of  others.  The  special  distinction 
between  these  intelligences  and  the  human  seems  to  consist 
not  so  much  in  a  relation  of  inferiority  and  superiority,  as  in 
a  generic  determination  in  particular  directions  of  the  brute 
intelligence,  in  contrast  with  a/ree  generality  in  the  human'. 

This  difference  is  sometimes  described  by  saying,  that,  in 
the  upward  gradation  of  the  zoocosm,  self-consciousness  appears 
first  (speaking  generally)  in  man.  Again,  in  the  comparison  of 
the  scale  of  the  zoocosm  with  the  scale  of  sensation,  and  in  the 
successions  of  individual  and  generic  advance  in  knowledge  or 
thought,  self- consciousness  is  put  high  up  or  late.  E.g.  as 
animality  advances,  in  the  zoocosm,  to  the  self-consciousness 
which  first  shows  itself  in  man ;  so  human  thought  advances, 
in  history,  to  the  self-consciousness  which  belongs  to  the  later 

ages  of  civilization. 

In  reality,  what  is  the  nature  of  the  consciousness  of  brutes 
is  a  thing,  it  seems  to  me,  which  we  do  not  at  all  know ;  and 
therefore  I  question  the  importance  of  describing  the  relation 
of  our  own  to  it  by  the  distinctive  name  of  self-consciousness. 
Self-consciousness  may  mean  various  things.  It  may  mean 
consciousness  with  much  attention,  and  with  attention  strongly 
introverted  or  reflective,  I  mean  called  away  from  whatever 
may  present  itself  as  the  objective  part  of  the  consciousness,  to 
ourselves  the  subjective  part.  It  may  mean  the  perception  of 
ourselves,  so  to  speak,  as  a  part  of  the  universe,  with  a  degree 
of  perception  of  the  particular  qualities  which  we  suppose  in 
ourselves,  commensurate  and  corresponding  to  the  view  which 
we  are  taking  of  the  universe.     To  compare  our  feeling  with 


Exjpl.  p.  179. 


X.] 


MORELL   AND  SPENCER. 


109 


that  of  the  brutes  in  respect  of  the  former  of  these  is  impossible. 
Of  the  degree,  or  even  of  the  character,  of  such  intensity  as 
there  is  in  any  consciousness  besides  our  own,  we  cannot  form 
a  notion.  It  is  impossible  for  us  to  tell  whether  even  plants 
may  not  have  something  of  consciousness.  Descartes  maintained 
that  animals  were  unconscious  machines,  and  the  only  way  of 
refuting  him  is  to  say  that  they  act  as  though  they  had 
consciousness,  this  being  the  only  proof  in  fact  that  we  each 
have  of  the  consciousness  of  our  fellow-men. 

The  second  kind  of  self-consciousness  is  really  better 
described  by  the  term  which  I  used  just  now,  'generality.' 
The  view  which  man  has  of  himself  as  a  part  of  the  universe 
belongs  to  the  general  manner  in  which  he  views  everything. 
A  main  point  of  the  difference  between  the  human  and  the 
merely  animal  intellect  is  the  disengagement  of  the  former 
from  the  immediate  present,  the  view  of  things  in  connexion 
by  means  of  memory  and  imagination,  and  the  interest  in  so 
viewing  them.  This  disengagement  is  what  I  termed  above 
freedom  of  the  knowledge,  a  character  which  it  possesses  in 
addition  to  that  of  generality.  Man  looks,  as  it  were,  at  the 
whole  universe  as  orderly,  and  arranged  into  kinds  of  things, 
as  an  individual  of  one  of  which  kinds  he  views  himself;  and 
he  has  a  sort  of  permanent  notion  or  consciousness  of  this 
universe  as  existing,  to  which,  as  to  a  ground,  he  refers  all 
particular  fresh  observations.  So  far  as  we  can  judge  of  the 
consciousness  of  the  inferior  animals,  they  have  but  in  a  very 
slight  degree  indeed  this  free  or  general  view,  as  distinct  from 
the  impressions  on  particular  occasions. 

The  mature  individual  human  intellect,  and  the  advanced 
or  highly-civilized  collective  human  intellect,  are  by  many 
considered,  in  comparison  with  the  immature  and  unadvanced, 
to  present  something  which  bears  an  analogy  to  the  human 
intellect  considered  in  comparison  with  the  inferior  animal 
intellect.  And  the  mature  or  advanced  state  is  variously 
described  as  a  positive  state  (to  use  a  single  word  for  it)  or  as 
a  self-conscious  state.  These  two  notions  mean  to  a  certain 
degree  the  same  thing;  but  at  the  same  time  are  so  far 
indicative   of  different,  and  even  contradictory  things,  as  to 


110 


COMPARATIVE  PSYCHOLOGY. 


[chap. 


suggest  that  these  various  analogies,  between  the  human 
intellect  as  compared  with  the  animal,  the  mature  individual 
intellect  as  compared  with  the  immature,  and  the  advanced 
humano-generic  intellect  as  compared  with  the  unadvanced, 
are  very  imperfect. 

Positivism  represents  what  the  brute  intellect  is  noty  in  so 
far  as  it  represents  a  wide  and  comprehensive  view  of  the 
phenomenal  universe  with  its  laws,  of  which  all  individual 
occurrences  are  looked  upon  simply  as  instances.  But  it  repre- 
sents what  the  brute  intellect  is,  in  so  far  as  it  represents  the 
restraint  of  the  intellect  in  its  disposition  to  generalize  and 
freely  to  expatiate.  And  in  this  point  of  view,  so  far  as  we 
consider  the  course  of  the  human  intellect,  individual  and 
collective,  to  be  through  such  expatiations  to  a  perception  of 
the  mistakenness  of  them,  and  a  consequent  return  to  a  con- 
fined sphere,  in  which  regard  is  had  only  to  definite  wants  and 
enjoyments,  the  course  is  not  a  genuine  progress,  but  is  either 
a  circle  or  a  limited,  almost  self-stunting,  growth.  The  fact  is, 
as  I  hope  we  shall  see,  that  with  the  more  general  view  of  the 
universe  there  should  go  other  elements  besides,  which  we  may 
call  growth  of  idealist  thought. 

If  we  say  that  in  the  advance  of  human  thought,  individual 
or  collective,  there  awakes  after  a  time  something  which  had 
not  been  (or  had  but  little  been)  before;  such  a  change  may 
betoken  no  advance,  but  the  opposite,  unless  by  self-conscious- 
ness be  meant  a  greater  intensity  of  consciousness,  as  well  as  a 
clearer  view  of  our  position  in  the  phenomenal  universe.  There 
may  be  self-consciousness  which  is  only  a  more  vivid  perception 
of  our  circumstances,  not  of  ourselves  in  contradistinction  from 
them  ;  these  two  being  radically  different  and  even  antithetic. 
The  one  self-consciousness  is  gi-eater  knowledge  of  the  circum- 
stances and  occasions  of  feelings,  the  other  is  greater  intensity 
and  perhaps  number,  and  perhaps  higher  character  of  the 
feelings  themselves.  And  this,  so  far  as  it  does  take  place  in 
man,  individual  or  collective,  comes  not  of  itself  but  as  the 
result  of  effort. 

It  seems  to  me  that  the  idea  of  a  gradual  or  successive 
awakening  from  unconsciousness  to  self-consciousness  is  what 


x] 


.  MORELL   AND  SPENCER. 


Ill 


% 


we  cannot  conceive—is  the  putting  together  two  views  which 
are  incongruous,  and  cannot  be  taken  in  conjunction.     I  mean 
here  by  unconsciousness  simple  '  materiality ,   or  whatever  we 
like  to  call  it,  of  which  the  supposition  is  to  be  made  that 
it    has    not    even    capacity   for    consciousness,   consciousness 
Svpdfiet,  in  the  Aristotelic  phrase.     And   this  is  not  merely 
otiose  scholastic  language :  for  the  point  of  what  I  am  saying  is 
that  if  you  suppose  materiality  (as  I  have  called  it)  historically 
developing  itself  into  consciousness,  you  must  logically  suppose 
consciousness  a  possible  quality  of  materiality,  by  the  side  of 
hardness,  smell,  &c.    This  is  really  the  supposition  of  a  previous 
real,  though  dormant,  existence  of  the  consciousness  in  the 
materiality,   which    indeed    the    word    'awakening'   suggests. 
But   then   this   seems   to    me    in    effect   to   be   saying,  that 
there   has  never  been  unconsciousness :    the  consciousness  is 
then  a  great  eternal  and  universal  fact,  as  well  as  the  materi- 
ality :  there  are  the  two  things  side  by  side,  and  what  we  in 
effect  say  is,  that  there  are  two  sorts  of  qualities,  which  cannot 
be   brought   into   relation    together:    there   are  the  qualities 
feeling,  thought,  &c.,  of  which  we  suppose  the  subject  7,  a 
person:    and  there  are  the  qualities  hardness,  shape,  &c.,  of 
which  we  suppose  the  subject  a  thing,  matter. 

In  reality,  the  historical,  or  quasi-historical  supposition  of 
matter  developing  into  consciousness,  consciousness  into  self- 
consciousness,  &c.  is  the  putting  into  language  of  time,  that 
which  Mr  Mill  expresses  in  logical  language :  it  is  the  pheno- 
menalist  view,  with  an  attempt  to  include  in  it  the  facts  of 
consciousness.  There  is  no  harm  in  giving  such  a  view :  only 
that,  in  respect  of  the  facts  of  consciousness,  it  is  not  fruitful. 
In  reality,  it  always  leads  in  the  end  to  what  it  might  more 
properly  and  logically  have  professed  at  the  beginning,  a 
negation  of  what,  in  the  point  of  view  of  consciousness,  most 
fully  and  thoroughly  appear  to  be  facts,  but  which  a  logic 
founded  entirely  upon  phenomenalist  principles,  is  unable  to 
take  account  of.  E.g,  the  freedom  of  the  will,  or  felt  liberty 
and  activity,  is  negatived  both  by  Mr  Mill  and  Mr  Herbert 
Spencer  at  the  end  of  their  books,  this  being  put  as  a  result  of 
the  reasonings  which  they  have  gone  through.     This  seems  to 


112 


COMPARATIVE  PSYCHOLOGY. 


[chap. 


me  much  the  same  thing  as  if  one  was  to  give  an  account  of 
the  spatial  universe,  saying,  that  variety  or  change  was  nothing 
but  the  difference  between  one  thing  and  another,  and  then  to 
deny  the  existence  of  timey  as  being  incompatible  with  this 
view.  If  we  do  not  take  our  liberty  or  activity  as  a  primary 
fact,  we  certainly  cannot  admit  it  afterwards  into  an  universe 
conceived  in  virtue  of  (or  by  means  of)  qualities  incongruous 
with  it.  If  mind  is  only  the  subject  of  changing  states,  there 
is  no  room  for  activity. 

And  in  the  same  way,  when  we  form  a  scheme  of  the 
gradual  development  of  life,  we  take  a  view  of  life  from  which 
we  can  never  rise  to  the  idea  of  liberty  or  activity  as  a  part  of 
it,  and  are  obliged,  as  Mr  Herbert  Spencer  does,  to  deny  this. 
We  may  imagine  the  phenomenal  universe  gradually  separating 
into  two  portions,  an  organized  and  an  unorganized,  each 
having  a  relation  to  the  other.  The  life  and  its  environment,  like 
our  senses  and  the  qualities  of  matter,  our  eyes  and  light,  &c. 
are,  in  a  manner,  two  parts,  two  opposite  sides,  of  the  same 
thing.  In  this  view,  the  perceiving  mind  is,  as  it  were,  between 
the  two,  looking  to  the  one  side  and  to  the  other,  to  a  certain 
depth,  but  only  to  a  certain  depth.  From  this  point  of  view, 
e.g.  to  take  one  side  only,  the  feeling  (which,  so  far  as  our  own 
consciousness  goes,  we  know  accompanies  the  communication 
between  the  organism  and  its  environment)  is  a  dead  letter  to 
us.  As  I  have  said,  what  animals  feel  and  even  whether  they 
feel  or  not,  we  do  not  know :  we  only  imagine  from  the  outside 
actions,  which  we  take  as  signs  of  feeling.  And  if  we  say  that 
these  actions  are  similar  to  actions  of  ours,  which  are  prompted 
in  us  by  particular  feelings  which  we  have,  we  then  bring  into 
evidence  something  (our  feeling  or  consciousness)  which,  if 
appealed  to  at  all,  must  be  produced  in  court  altogether,  in  all 
its  circumstances  and  to  all  its  depth,  and  if  we  do  this,  we 
shall  be  in  danger  of  finding  this  view  swallow  up  the  other. 

In  speaking  formerly  of  the  phenomenalist  and  logical 
views\  one  way  in  which  I  described  their  difference  was  that, 
in  the  former,  knowledge,  in  the  latter,  fact,  was  of  the  nature 


^  Expl.  p.  59. 


X.] 


MORELL  AND  SPENCER. 


113 


of  an  accident.  The  relation  of  life  (or  organization)  to  matter 
(or  that  which  is  unorganized),  in  the  point  of  view  of  accident, 
is  an  interesting  matter  of  psycho-cosmology. 

It  is  interesting  to  compare  the  two  'counter-suppositions'* 
(so  for  a  moment  to  call  them)  of  thought  generating  matter, 
and  matter  generating  thought.  This  latter  supposition  would 
be  described  probably  as  *  inorganism '  developing  into  organi- 
zation, and  organization  into  self-consciousness:  'developing 
into'  here  would  mean  just  the  same  as  'generating/  and  they 
imply  both  of  them  an  activity  in  matter,  only  not  such  an 
activity  as  we  suppose  in  thought:  but  in  reality  something 
of  this  other  activity,  some  thought^  must  be  supposed  besides : 
the  notion  of  *  laws '  of  generation  or  development  is  really  a 
reference  to  such.  The  other  or  counter-supposition  is  of 
thought,  i.e.  an  original  thinking  being,  first  conceiving,  and 
then  creating,  matter.  This  supposition  will  stand  by  itself  in 
a  manner  in  which  the  other  will  not,  because  thought  we  do 
conceive  as  active,  while  matter  we  do  not.  And  it  is  really 
also  the  more  comprehensive  of  the  two.  It  may  be  said,  that 
thought  will  no  more  embrace  matter  in  itself,  can  no  more  be 
conceived  as  having  been  capable  of  generating  it,  than  matter 
will  embrace  thought  in  itself,  or  can  be  conceived  capable  of 
generating  that :  but  this  I  think  is  not  so.  I  will  not  however 
enter  into  the  reason  now. 

Leaving  out  of  view  for  the  present  the  higher  philosophy 
of  which  I  shall  afterwards  speak,  we  are  condemned,  it  seems 
to  me,  to  think  of  things  in  one  of  two  ways,  both  of  which  are 
imperfect :  the  intensive  way  of  consciousness,  and  the  expan- 
sive way  of  observation.  We  can  gauge  our  thought,  or  we  can 
measure  the  limitation  of  it :  mixing  it  with  other  thought  is 
what  we  can  only  do  in  the  last  resort,  the  highest  thing  that 
we  can  do. 

1  Expl.  23,  47. 


8 


CHAPTER  XI. 

CONNEXION  BETWEEN  THE  SENSE  OF  SIGHT  AND  OUR 
CONCEPTION  OF  THE  EXTERNAL  UNIVERSE.  PRE- 
SENTMENT  AND   DESCRIAL. 

It  is  upon  the  sense  of  sight  that  depends  our  imagination, 
and  consequently  the  mass  of  our  conception. 

Sight  may  in  certain  particulars  be  considered  a  modifi- 
cation, or  subtle  kind  of  touch,  as  in  this  character  specially, 
that  it  *  objectifies '  ourselves,  or  reveals  to  us  our  own  bodies 
as  part  of  the  universe,  while  at  the  same  time  we  stand,  as 
sentient  of  it,  in  distinction  from  it.  Sight,  as  a  vastly 
expanded  touch,  makes  us  know  the  universe,  with  ourselves 
as  part  of  it,  vastly  more  vividly  and  widely  than  touch  does. 

Sight,  however,  has  certain  particulars  in  which  it  is 
distinguished  from  touch,  this  especially,  that  there  is  in  it 
what  we  may  call  a  double  perception,  or  a  sub-perception 
joined  to  a  perception — a  field  of  view  and  a  proper  object  of 
vision  in  it — an  indistinctly  seen  mass  and  a  something  noticed 
or  distinctly  seen — in  rather  different  words,  a  mass  of  what  is 
barely  seen  and  a  something  seen  with  intelligence — a  host  of 
things  in  view  and  something  among  them  or  about  them 
looked  at.  In  touch  and  in  sight  there  is  equally  the  exercise 
of  volition  for  attention  and  notice,  but  it  acts  in  different 
ways.  Its  action  in  touch  (for  intelligence)  is  mensurative,  or, 
as  it  may  be  called  in  comparison  with  the  other,  intensive, 
while  in  sight  it  is  distinctive,  particularizing,  singling  out, 
insulating \  In  the  latter  there  is  a  double  presence,  (1)  of 
a  mass  of  objects  to  the  organ  or  nerve,  and  indistinctly  to  the 
mind,  (2)  of  a  particular  object  more  strongly  and  specially  to 
the  organ,  and  distinctly  to  the  mind. 

1  Expl.  40  foil 


CHAP.  XI.] 


PRESENTMENT   AND   DESCRIAL. 


115 


t 


I  shall  call  the  two  parts  of  the  sensation  by  different 
names*:  that  which  belongs  to  the  sub-perception,  *  present- 
ment': that  which  belongs  to  the  perception,  *  descrial.'  The 
first  is  what  is  presented  to  us :  the  second  is  what  we  descry. 
I  do  not  mean  that  the  mind  is  all  passive  in  regard  of  the 
first,  or  all  active  in  regard  of  the  second.  One  must  be  very 
cautious  as  to  speaking  about  the  mind's  passivity  and  activity. 
We  may  say  with  equal  correctness  such  and  such  a  thing  in  a 
view  is  what  draws  the  eye,  or  such  and  such  a  thing  is  what 
we  remark  and  notice :  we  may  say,  either,  we  look  at  such  a 
prospect,  and  such  a  thing  in  it  is  what  strikes  us,  or,  such 
a  prospect  is  before  our  eyes,  and  such  a  thing  in  it  is  what  we 
look  at. 

By  *  presentment '  I  mean  the  fact  of  the  view  being  before 
our  eyes,  independent  of  the  thought  of  one  portion  of  it  being 
noticed  by  us  more  than  another.  This  is,  in  my  sense  of  the 
word,  an  abstraction,  because,  unless  we  are  in  a  reverie,  that 
is,  if  we  are  in  a  normal  condition  of  sight,  there  is  always 
special  notice  of  one  portion  of  it,  and  such  sight  of  the  whole 
as  we  have,  varies  according  to  this.  It  is  visual  presentment 
which  causes  our  imagination  of  the  universe,  and  visual 
descrial  which  causes  us  to  think  particular  objects  in  it. 

The  two  great  philosophical  controversies  as  to  sight  seem 
to  be,  which  of  the  two,  presentment  or  descrial,  give  us  the 
most  of  reality  and  truth,  and  which  of  the  two  is  most 
properly  to  be  called  sight. 

On  the  former  of  these  controversies,  those  ih  favour  of 
presentment  would  say  that  descrial  is  all  imagination :  those 
in  favour  of  descrial  would  say  presentment  is  all  illusion. 
*  You  must  interpret  presentment,'  say  the  latter,  *  before  you 
get  any  reality ' :  *  If  you  do  begin  to  do  this,'  say  the  others, 
'you  will  lose  your  hold  on  reality,  and  get  a  world  of  inventions 
or  creations  of  your  own.'  The  distinction  between  presentment 
and  descrial  is  involved  with  the  deepest  philosophical  problem 
which  there  is. 

*  See  Crabbe,  quoted  in  Expl.  44, 

It  is  the  mind  that  sees:  the  outward  eyes 
Present  the  object,  but  the  mind  descries. 

8—2 


116 


PRESENTMENT   AND  DESCRIAL. 


[chap.  XI. 


This  problem  or  question  is,  whether  (taking  the  suggestion 
probably  from  consciousness  of  what  we  call  our  own  existence) 
we  believe  a  priori  in  the  existence  of  something  (or,  as  to  the 
action  of  our  mind,  look  for  things):  or  whether  we  conceive 
of  existence  of  things  because  we  find  them  (what  we  call)  to 
exist.  The  question  lies  at  the  root  of  all  thought.  A  great 
many  of  the  difficulties  of  logic  and  grammar  turn  upon  it : 
and  it  is  perhaps  by  a  mental  reference  to  these  subjects  that 
some  will  best  understand  the  problem. 

We  speak,  e.g.  of  '  the  visible  world,'  *  visible  things.'    Do 
we  mean   (I  will  put   it  in  various  ways)   things   of  which 
visibility  is  the   essential   character,   or  of  which   it  is  one 
character,  possibly  along  with  many  others  ?  things  as  visible, 
or  things,  more  than  visible,  which  we  know  by  means  of  their 
being  visible  ?  things  as  they  seem  to  us,  or  things  which  seem 
to  us  this  or  that,  whatever  may  be  their  real  nature  ?     Is  all 
that  may  have  to  do  with  sight  what  constitutes  to  us  the  reality 
of  the  thing,  or  is  it  our  way  to  the  knowledge  of  the  thing 
(which  is  itself  something  beyond  and  independent)  ?    Is  it  the 
seen,  to  opw/iei/oi/— what  we  may  call  the  gross  visual  reality— 
or  is  it  what  we  imagine,  which  constitutes  the  net  and  pure 
reality,  when  what  we  think  has  meaning  and  the  medium  is 

forgotten  ? 

It  is  not  easy  to  see  the  question  here,  but  it  is  most 
important.     It  is  equally  important,  more  generally,  in  regard 
of  the  term  'object'  of  knowledge  in  any  application.     Do  we, 
as  we  first  think  and  use  the  word  know,  mean  by  it  a  transitive 
word,  certain  beforehand  that  there  is  something  to  be  known, 
that  there  is  what  I  may  call  an  ohjidend,  which  may  present 
itself  as  an  actual  object  of  knowledge  ?     When  it  is  an  object, 
of  course  its  separateness  or  independence  is  ended  by  the 
particular  manner  of  the  knowledge:   had  it  ever,  or  could 
it  ever  have  such  independence?     Verherat  hominem,  Servit 
servitutem:  in  the  former  case,  the  object  is  independent  of  the 
verb,  and  need  not  have  been  object  of  it,  in  the  latter  case 
the  object  has  no  existence  except  in  dependence  on  the  verb : 
philosophers  are  continually  using  the  term  *  object '  of  know- 
ledge without  at  all  explaining  in  which  of  these  (so  different) 
senses  they  are  using  it. 


CHAPTER  XII. 


ON   THE   THEORY   OF   VISION. 

The  account  which  I  have  given^  of  the  action  of  sight  as 
compared  with  that  of  other  senses,  may  perhaps  make   it 
appear  why  men  have  spoken  of  the  visible  world  or  universe  in 
a  manner  different  from  that,  e.g.,  in  which  they  have  spoken  of 
the  audible  universe,  as  conceivably  possessing  a  reality  which 
could  not  be  even  thought  of  for  the  other.     Yet  the  audible 
universe  is  the  universe  of  sound  in  a  manner  quite  analogous 
to  that  in  which  the  visible  universe  is  the  universe  of  colour : 
and  though  there  is  much  difference  in  degree,  yet  in  substance 
the  ear  lends  itself  to  adjustments  indicating  primary  qualities, 
distance,  direction  etc.,  and  associating  themselves  with  other 
corporeal  movements  more  fully  indicating  such  qualities,  just 

as  the  eye  does. 

We  may  say  that  there  are  three  heads  of  controversy  about 
the  visible  world,  or  visual  fact,  which  however  I  shall  not  try 
to  keep  too  separate :  the  first  is  the  controversy  as  to  the  right 
application  of  the  word  '  see,'  which  is  a  verbal  controversy,  but 
like  most  verbal  controversies  involves  something  more  than 

words. 

The  next  head  of  controversy  as  to  visual  fact  is  the  nature 
of  the  reality  which,  according  as  we  use  the  word  'see,'  belongs 
to  what  we  consider  the  objects  of  sight. 

The  third,  and  most  important,  is  the  actual  nature  of  the 
fawjt  which  we  may  call  in  general '  visual.'  I  say  '  in  general, 
to  keep  this  part  of  the  subject  as  clear  as  possible  from  any 

1  Expl.  21,  39. 


118 


ON  THE  THEORY   OF   VISION. 


[chap. 


controversy  as  to  the  use  of  words,  or  as  to  their  logical  meaning, 
or  as  to  the  ultimate  meaning  of  *  reality/ 

I  have  already  indicated  to  a  certain  extent  my  own  views 
as  to  this  third  question^  and  shall  now  proceed  to  speak  a  little 
upon  the  actual  controversy  which  there  has  been  about  it, 
which  is  involved  to  a  certain  degree  with  controversy  upon 
the  second  head. 

The  name  of  Bishop  Berkeley  is  intimately  associated  with 
all  this  controversy,  in  a  manner,  it  appears  to  me,  most 
mistaken.  There  are  two  ruling  doctrines,  so  to  call  it,  in 
Berkeley's  Theory  of  Vision  :  the  one,  which  is  for  the  most  part 
taken  for  granted,  is  that  we  see  what  I  will  call '  perspectivally '; 
that  what  we  see,  in  one  sense  at  least  of  the  word  '  see,'  is  not 
the  actual  or  tangible  thing  in  its  proper  shape  and  its  true 
position,  but  a  representation  of  it,  indicating  these ;  and  that 
the  proper  shape  and  true  position  are  to  a  considerable  extent 
matters  of  judgment.  All  this,  in  the  main,  Berkeley  explains 
and  illustrates,  but  takes  for  granted :  while,  as  his  own  new 
doctrine,  he  superadds  that  the  suggestiveness,  by  visual  fact,  of 
tactual  or  real  fact,  is  not  in  virtue  of  any  connexion  between 
the  different  senses,  nor  again  in  virtue  of  any  resemblance 
between  the  so-called  distances,  magnitudes,  shapes,  in  the  one 
case  and«in  the  other ;  but  is  the  result  of  what  he  (and  others 
after  him)  have  sometimes  represented  as  an  arbitrary  arrange- 
ment of  the  Creator,  brought  about  by  means  of  an  association 
in  our  minds,  similar  to  that  which  makes  the  word  '  lion,'  when 
we  see  it  written,  call  up  to  our  imagination  the  actual  four- 
legged  creature. 

Berkeley's  advocacy  of  the  latter  of  these  doctrines  as  his 
own,  naturally  leads  him  to  put  forward  very  strongly,  and  to 
illustrate  very  vividly,  the  fact  (which  is  far  from  new  or  his 
own),  that  it  is  by  judgment,  and  not  by  anything  which  can 
be  called  actual  sight  as  distinguished  from  judgment,  that  for 
the  most  part  we  become  aware  of  distance,  magnitude,  and 
position:  and  hence  his  treatise,  as  an  account  of  vision,  has 
a  permanent  value  quite  independent  of  his  own  theory. 


Expl.  39  foil. 


XII.] 


ON   THE   THEORY   OF   VISION. 


119 


Putting  forward,  as  he  does,  what  would  undoubtedly  be 
considered  a  paradox  by  people  in  general,  he  misconceives 
the  reason  why  it  would  be  so  considered.     He  thinks  people 
are  all  but  irrecoverably  prejudiced  to  regard  the  things  which 
they  see  as  the  real  things.     Now  in  reality,  it  is  not  here  that 
he  would  find  people  differing  from  him.     Of  course  people  in 
general  do  not  turn  their  thoughts  much  to  the  subject,  but  so 
far  as  they  do,  they  would  perfectly  agree  with  what  he  goes  on 
to  say  about '  immediate '  and  '  mediate '  vision,  and  would  be 
quite  ready  to  allow  that,  while  in  one  sense  of  the  word  vision 
(called,  if  he  will,  '  mediate ')  they  see  the  things,  in  another 
sense  ('  immediate ')  they  do  not  see  the  things,  but  representa- 
tions of  them,  a  shaded  circle  for  instance  instead  of  a  sphere, 
an  acute  angle  instead  of  a  right  angle  made  by  a  receding  line 
with  a  vertical.     They  would  not  differ  from  him,  nor  would 
the  paradox  begin,  till  he  came  to  say.  These  representations 
which  you  see  are  not  suggestive  by  resemblance  or  for  any 
reason  in  themselves,  but  only  arbitrarily  and  by  an  association, 
which  might  as  well  have  made  anything  else  represent  the 
things,  if  so  it  had  been.     And  in  my  judgment  they  are  right, 

not  he. 

These  two  doctrines,  the  doctrine  of  our  perspectival  sight 
and  of  its  need  of  correction  or  addition  from  something  other 
than  sight,  in  order  to  be  sight  of  the  real,  or  sight  which  we 
can  act  upon— which  doctrine  seems  to  me  as  old  as  human 
thought  or  human  language— and  the  doctrine  that  the  former, 
or  immediate,  sight,  stands  to  the  latter,  or  mediate,  in  the 
relation  of  an  arbitrarily  significant  symbolism,  well  represented 
by  the  words  of  a  language— these  two  doctrines  have  been  put 
together  by   many  philosophers  into   a  supposed  Berkeleian 
discovery  with  singular  result.      With   some,  the   charm  has 
been  in  the  arbitrary  association  or  experience :  and  Berkeley, 
endeared  by  the  degree  to  which  he  has  insisted  on  this,  has 
been  credited  with  the   entire  discovery  of  our  perspectival 
vision.     The  view  thus  set  on  foot  has  been  acquiesced  in  by 
others,  to  whom  association  and  experience  were  matters  of 
more  indifference,  and  by  others  again  (it  appears  to  me)  who 
in  their  dislike  to  this  doctrine  of  association  have  been  led  on 


120 


ON  THE  THEORY   OF  VISION. 


[chap. 


iif 


to  attack  things  by  no  means  necessarily  concerned  with  it  or 
with  Berkeley.  Mr  Abbott's  book*  seems  to  me  an  attempt  to 
prove  in  fact,  that  the  visible  world  or  visual  fact  is  more  real, 
more  the  universe  to  us,  more  representative  of  the  truth  of 
things,  than  the  tactual  or  tangible :  from  which  it  would  seem 
to  follow  that  in  view  of  action  we  should  correct  our  touch  by 
our  sight. 

I  do  not  think  the  controversy  has  been  carried  on  in  a 
very  philosophical  manner.  The  impugners  of  the  supposed 
Berkeleian  theory  are  treated  with  a  kind  of  contempt,  some- 
what in  the  same  manner  in  which  we  might  treat  an  impugner 
of  the  Copemican  system  of  the  heavens :  and  they  for  their 
part,  or  at  least  Mr  Abbott,  conceive  themselves  as  maintainers 
of  common  sense  and  natural  human  judgment  (called  possibly 
by  them  *  the  evidence  of  consciousness ')  against  paradox  and 
philosophical  refinement.  This  again  their  opponents  allow  in 
somewhat  of  a  different  view,  considering  that  the  universal 
persuasion  of  ordinary  human  nature  is  opposed  to  the  uni- 
versally received  opinion  of  philosophers,  which  latter,  of  course, 
they  hold  for  truth. 

Nothing  can  be  more  unlike  the  real  aspect  of  the  question 
than  all  this.  In  a  general  way,  we  had  better  in  philosophy 
say  as  little  as  we  can  either  about  persuasions  of  ordinary 
human  nature  or  generally  received  opinions  of  philosophers ; 
for  there  has  gone  more  discussion  to  settle  what  is  the  actual 
persuasion  or  opinion,  than  might  have  been  sufficient  to  settle 
the  point  itself  independent  of  these  matters,  if  it  had  been 
directed  to  that  end.  Or  in  default  of  such  discussion,  there 
has  been  what  is  worse,  simple  repetition  of  one  philosopher  by 
another,  which  is  the  common  way  in  which  an  opinion  gets 
the  character  of  being  generally  received. 

In  this  question,  however,  at  any  rate,  all  appeal  to  quasi- 
authority  either  of  human  nature  or  of  philosophers  is  alike 
out  of  place.  Involving,  as  it  does  most  intimately,  the  entire 
question  of  sensation,  it  is  equally  unphilosophical  to  bar  it  as 
settled  and  done  with,  or  to  fix  the  ground  to  argue  it  on  by 

*  Sight  and  Touchy  Longmans,  1864. 


XII.] 


ON   THE  THEORY   OF  VISION. 


121 


reference  to  a  consensus  of  philosophic  authority  in  favour  of  a 
supposed  Berkeleian  theory. 

In  examining  Berkeley's  argument  it  is  important  to  observe 
his  manner  of  dealing  with  distance  as  compared  with  his  dealing 
with  magnitude  and  situation,  on  account  of  the  great  misap- 
prehensions about  it.     He  is  supposed  to  have  discovered  that 
we  do  not  see,  but  only  judge  of  distance  in  a  right  line  from 
the  eye\    But  instead  of  its  being  Berkeley's  argument  to  prove 
that  we  do  not  see  distance  perpendicular  to  the  eye,  his  argu- 
ment is  to  prove  that  we  do  visually  apprehend  it,  in  the  same 
way  in  which  we  visually  apprehend  anything  real,  viz.  mediately 
by  signs.    The  '  perspectivaV  fact  (so  to  call  it)  of  foreshortening, 
which  he  speaks  of  as  known  to  all,  is  opposed  to  his  argument 
in  one  respect,  while  it  is  helpful  to  it  in  another.    He  makes  it 
helpful  in  this  way :  '  You  allow,'  he  says, '  that  you  know,  by 
exercised  sight,  the  direct  distance  of  thiugs,  while  yet  you 
have  no  proper  visual  means  of  doing  so :  i.e.  you  know  it  by 
signs  or  mediately :  I  am  going  to  prove  that  it  is  this  same 
way  in  which,  so  far  as  sight  goes,  you  know  any  reality,  not 
only  distance,  but  form,  magnitude,  situation.     You  grant  the 
possibility  of  knowledge  of  this  kind,  in  the  case  of  distance : 
I  will  show  you  how  widely  it  extends.'     In  this  way  Berkeley 
uses  the  manner  of  sight  of  distance  in  support  of  his  argu- 
ment :  at  the  same  time  his  argument  in  many  respects  would 
have  been  easier  if  our  visual  apprehension  of  distance  per- 
pendicular to  the  eye  had  been  more  analogous  to  our  visual 
apprehension  of  figure  or  length  in  front  of  the  eye.     He  has 
not  been  able  to  prove  to  people  what  he  wanted  to  prove  (that 
we  do  not  see  real  figure  in  a  plane  in  front  of  the  eye  any 
more   than   we   see  real  distance  perpendicular  to  the   eye), 
because  people  have  always  stuck  at  the  difference  between 
our  manner  of  seeing  these,  and  have  said,  '  What  you  say 
applies  in  the  one  case,  distance :   it  does  not  apply  ^m   the 
other:   we  will  therefore   understand  your  argument   of  the 
former  only':   which  is  misunderstanding  it. 

Supposing  Berkeley  to  have  made  out  that  seeing  is  not  by 

1  Expl.  40. 


M 


!     I 


122 


ON  THiE  THEORY  OF  VISION. 


[chap. 


W- 


any  natural  geometry  of  lines  and  angles  present  in  some  way 
or  other  to  our  judgment,  but  consists  in  sensation  or  feeling  on 
our  part,  feeling  of  movement  of  the  eyes  and  feeling  of  various 
distinctnesses  or  definitenesses  of  nervous  affection,  which 
varieties  of  feeling  come  by  experience  to  represent  to  us  what 
we  call  various  distances,  forms  and  magnitudes— we  find  that 
the  result  of  the  interpretation  which  we  thus  put  upon  the 
visual  feeling,  is  to  create  before  us  '  the  visible  world '  or  a 
variously  shaped  and  coloured  scene,  the  particular  portions  of 
which  we  call  visible  things,  saying  of  them  that  they  have 
form,  magnitude,  distance.  What  relation  then,  in  Berkeley's 
view,  does  this  scene,  its  separate  portions,  and  the  ground  or 
canvass  of  it,  which  for  the  present  we  will  call  visible  space, 

bear  to  reality? 

The  visual  scene,  says  Berkeley,  is  really  at  no  distance 
from  us,  it  is  in  our  eye  or,  at  least,  in  ourselves :  it  is  only 
in  consequence  of  our  tactual  experience  that  it  and  the  several 
parts  of  it  begin  to  stand  off  from  us,  or  that  there  begins  to 
arise  what  has  been  called  'outness'^:  this  tactual  experience 
interprets  the  movements  of  the  eyes  and  the  variety  of  dis- 
tinctnesses of  objects  into  different  distances  of  objects  from 
us,  and  this  is  the  first  step  in  the  transforming  that  which 
is  really  at  the  eye  into  the  scene  before  us.  Hence  to  one 
suddenly  recovered  from  blindness  it  must  appear,  says 
Berkeley,  not  the  perspectival  scene  which  it  appears  after- 
wards, but  a  confused  mass  of   colour   close   to   us  or  not 

distinct  from  us. 

Berkeley's  saying  this  is  remarkable,  inasmuch  as  it  is 
chiefly  since  his  time  that  observations  have  been  made  on 
persons  fresh  couched,  and  it  has  appeared  that  they  do,  more 
or  less,  see  as  he  said  they  must.  But  still  his  way  of  putting 
the  matter  involves  difficulty.  Experiments  of  the  kind  just 
mentioned  are  not  of  much  value,  for  this  reason.  Of  course 
the  eye,  on  being  first  called  suddenly  into  active  existence, 
cannot  use  itself  {ii  we  may  employ  the  expression),  or  put  out 
its  own  powers :  its  condition  is  for  the  moment,  perhaps  for 


Expl  47;  Berkeley  Vision,  §  46. 


XII.] 


ON   THE   THEORY   OF   VISION. 


123 


some  time,  mazed  and  abnormal :  the  man  sees  things  no  how 
(so   to   speak),  can   make   nothing   of  anything,  like   a  man 
suddenly   cured   of  complete   deafness   in   the   middle   of   an 
instrumental  concert.     But  this  is  really  not  the  same  thing 
as  the  seeing  everything,  previously  to  experience,  immediately 
at  the  eye,  which  is  what  Berkeley  says  must  be.     What  is 
superinduced  may  be  only  orderliness  of  the  confused,  as  the 
eye  begins  properly  to  perform  its  functions,  not  anything  new 
to  the  eye,  or  generically  different  from  the  first  instant's  vision, 
like  the  supposed  outness.     The  newly  couched  man  has  an 
orange  set  before  him,  and  is  told  to  take  it  with  his  hand, 
and  makes  all  sorts  of  bad  shots  before  he  succeeds  in  doing 
so,  coming  to  know  its  distance  thus  by  tactual  experience. 
What  we  want  to  know  is,  how  far,  if  he  had  two  oranges  set 
before  him,  one  a  little  further  than  the  other,  whether  in  a 
right  line  from  the  eye  or  not,  his  hands  tied  behind  him,  and 
leisure  given  him  to  accustom  himself  to  things  about  him,  he 
would  be  able  by  the  use  of  the  eye  or  eyes  alone  to  form  any 
opinion  as  to  the  distance  of  the  oranges  the  one  from  the 
other,  and  correspondingly  of  their  offness  or  distance  from 
himself.     This  question  is  one  of  '  psych ophysiology,'  not  as 
Berkeley  puts  it,  of  philosophy.     No  doubt  the  perspectival 
scene  before  us  is  really  at  no  distance,  really  at  the  eye,  in 
this  respect,  that  were  our  retina  suddenly  diseased,  all  else 
remaining  the  same,  we  might  see  (in  this  use  of  the  word),  a 
scene  or  supposed  prospect  entirely  different  from  what  we  saw 
before :  and  since  the  eye  cannot  tell  its  own  disease,  we  could 
form  from  mere  vision  no  judgment  as  to  the  comparative  truth 
of  what  we  saw.     To  alter  the  scene  then,  we  have  only  to 
affect  the  eye :  there  might  be  imagined  medicaments  for  the 
optic  nerve  which  might  enable  us  to  live  in  a  visible  world 
of  our  own,  perpetually  varying  and  of  whatever  beauty  we 
pleased  and  could  pre-imagine.     But  all  this  gives  us  no  reason 
to  consider  that  a  person  beginning  to  see  will  see  things  as  at 
the  eye.     What  is  in  the  eye  is  nervous  agitation,  and  corre- 
sponding to  this  in  the  world  of  consciousness  is  true  sensation 
or  thought,  and  according  to  the  nervous  agitation  this  thought 
creates  the  visual  object  and  projects  it  into  space  which  it  has 


I' 


124 


ON   THE   THEORY   OF  VISION. 


[chap. 


created  likewise,  and  this  is  its  locality  as  a  part  of  the  visual 
scene.  It  is  at  the  eye  in  quite  a  different  sense  from  the 
sense  in  which  it  has  this  locality,  and  no  experience  can  make 
a  bridge  between  one  and  the  other. 

The  supposition  then  that  the  perception  of '  outness '  is  a 
putting  things  oflF  from  the  eye  or  ourselves,  which  at  first  sight 
appear  to  be  at  or  with  us,  is  an  unphilosophical  one.  But  of 
course  there  is  no  doubt  but  that  the  visual  scene,  as  it  is 
looked  on  by  the  mature  eye  of  any  one  of  us,  has  its  history, 
having  been  once  merely  rudimentary,  and  that  this  history  is 
a  succession  of  what  if  we  like  we  may  call  *  experiences,'  which 
are  first  of  ocular  movement  associated  with  our  colour- taste ^,  so 
to  call  it,  and  then  of  general  corporeal  movement  associated 
with  this.  How  the  visual  scene,  which  we  seem  to  have  before 
us,  is  exactly  to  be  conceived  in  relation  to  other  things  in  a 
manner  like  it,  is  hard  to  say.  I  mean  in  this  way.  Those  who 
say,  like  Mr  Mill,  that  it  is  a  vertical  plane  in  front  of  us,  or  like 
Dr  Reid,  that  it  is  an  equiradial  concavity  in  front  of  us,  seem 
to  me  to  be  teaching  that  natural  geometry  which  Berkeley  so 
much  dislikes.  It  is  representable  pictorially  by  means  of  such 
a  plane,  but  it  might  equally  be  described  as  a  series  of  receding 
scenic  pictures,  and  in  other  ways.  That  which  we  employ  to 
suggest  to  another  by  likeness  what  we  see  or  imagine,  must  of 
course  be  like  what  we  see,  but  how  like  is  hard  to  say.  Again, 
how  far  may  we  say  that  the  painter's  task  is  to  unlearn  much 
that  is  added  in  the  visual  scene  to  what  is  pure  matter  of 
vision,  and  see  things,  so  to  speak,  with  the  eyes  alone,  without 
the  intrusive  imagination  or  mind  ?  Does  the  child  really  see 
that  the  lines  of  a  house  at  a  distance  are  in  perspective,  since 
if  you  tell  him  to  draw  them,  it  is  very  unlikely  that  he  will 
draw  them  so?  Might  Berkeley  have  given  as  an  argument 
against  *  natural  geometry '  the  fact  that  perspective  lines  and 
angles  have  never  till  this  moment,  it  would  appear,  impressed 
themselves  upon  the  Chinese  eye,  and  that  in  drawing  a  thing, 
they  never  imitate  it  as  our  eye,  at  least,  would  see  it,  but 
some  other  conception  of  it  ? 


^  Expl.  p.  41. 


XII.] 


ON  the  theory  of  vision. 


125 


But  to  keep  at  present  to  Berkeley's  view.     It  seems  to  me 
there  is  want  of  clearness  in  his  description  of  the  object  of 
what   he   calls  immediate  vision.     It  is  '  light  and  colours ' : 
again  it  is  visual  extension,  form,  magnitude,  etc.  only  that 
these  are  to  be  considered  specifically  distinct  from,  merely 
homonymous  with,  the  tangible  extension,  form  etc.,  which  bear 
the  same  names.    I  think  it  will  appear,  if  we  watch,  that  m  all 
this  there  is  a  confusion  of  what  I  call  philosophy  on  the  one 
side  and  physics  or  physiopsychology  on  the  other.     Light  and 
colours,  i.e.  light  with  its  own  laws,  and  its  relations  to  our 
nerves  of  sensation,  is  an  actual  physical  existence :   there  is 
no  other  question  as  to  its  reality  than  such  as  belongs  to  the 
reality  of  phenomenalism  in  general.     But  the  question  what 
sort  of  reality  belongs  to  the  visible  scene  which  we  suppose 
before  our  eyes,  is  one  of  quite  a  different  consideration,  and  so  of 
course  is  the  question,  what  relation  its  reality  bears  to  tactual 
reality,  whether  it  is  the  same,  or  different. 

We  may  be  said  to  see  what  we  ultimately  (in  Berkeley's 
phrase  'mediately')  see,  viz.  what  Berkeley  would  call  the  real 
moon,  the  real  tree,  the  real  geometrical  figure,  by  all  sorts 
of  intermediations,  the  confusing  of  which  together  is  fatal  to 
any  sort  of  clearness  of  conception.     We  see  it  by  the  mter- 
mediation  of  our  sensation  as  nervous  agitation  and  ocular 
volition;  by  the  intermediation  of  light  and  its  optical  laws 
(the  action  of  which,  as  sensally  known  to  us,  we  call  colour), 
and  also  its  geometrical  laws  (the  maintaining  that  these,  if 
visually  known  to  us,  must  be  so  by  sensation,  i.e.  nervous 
disturbance,  not  by  reason  of  their  mere  existence,  is  the  con- 
troversy  against  natural  geometry),  including  under  these  the 
image  on  the  retina ;  by  the  intermediation  of  the  visual  scene, 
which  is  a  sort  of  compound  of  these  two  last  intermediations 
with  experience  of  touch  and  movement  and  more  general 
thought.     But   these  intermediations  (and  others  might  be 
mentioned  besides  them),  are  intermediations  in  different  ways. 
The  question  may  be  best  understood  by  considering  in  illus- 
tration of  it,  whether  we  see  form  in  a  plane  in  front  of  the  eye. 
What  has  been  said  about  this  shows  the  odd  misapprehensions, 
as  it  seems  to  me,  of  Berkeley's  doctrine.     Berkeley  says  of  it. 


llJ 


126 


ON  THE  THEORY   OF   VISION. 


[chap. 


1^ 


/      I 


!  .  t    I 


as  of  everything  else,  we  do  not  see  it,  and  we  do.  We  see  so 
many  minima  visibiliay  or  units  of  visible  extension,  and  we 
put  them  together,  making  up  visible  magnitude  or  form  :  but 
this  is  not  real  or  tangible  magnitude  and  form,  but  something 
specifically  different  from  it.  It  may  very  likely  take  time  to 
put  them  together,  so  that  we  come  to  see  this  form  by  a  process : 
but  then  this  is  not  wonderful.  So,  by  a  process,  we  come  to  ap- 
prehend visually  comparative  distance  of  objects  even  in  a  direct 
line  from  the  eye.  There  is  a  face  of  cliff  two  miles  off,  and  a 
large  tree  one  mile  off  standing  in  relief  against  it.  We  see 
the  cliff  with  one  degree  of  distinctness,  the  tree  with  another, 
and  notice  the  difference  without  knowing  that  it  means  any- 
thing. Similarly,  in  the  former  case,  we  put  the  minimxi  visibilia 
together,  and  notice  them  all  together  thus,  without  under- 
standing that  this  means  anything.  Afterwards  we  walk  up  to 
the  tree  and  the  cliff,  and  find  they  are  a  mile  the  one  from  the 
other,  and  we  say.  Now  we  know  what  the  difference  of  distinct- 
ness means,  and  call  it  visible  distance.  And  then,  guided  by 
the  collection  of  minima  visibilia,  we  put  our  hand  (say)  to 
a  ring  on  the  table  or  the  surface  of  a  round  table  itself,  and 
finding  that  our  hand  travels  round  it  with  a  certain  amount  of 
effort,  with  no  direct  resistance,  with  uniform  change  of  direction, 
returning  to  where  it  started  from,  we  say.  Now  we  know  what 
that  which  was  before  our  eye  means:  it  means  this  actual 
tangible  figure  which  we  will  call  a  circle. 

Berkeley  puts  together  the  heterogeneous  intermediation 
between  our  visual  power  and  that  which  we  ultimately  or 
mediately  see  into  one  notion  of  symbol  or  sign,  and  does  not 
seem  to  me  to  deal  quite  fairly  by  it.  He  uses  what  he  considers 
the  entire  unlikeness  between  variety  of  visual  distinctness  (the 
sign)  and  traversable  distance  (the  thing  signified)  to  establish 
(so  far  as  it  is  established)  that  it  is  by  signs  entirely  unlike 
the  things  signified  that  we  see  these  latter  things :  at  the  same 
time  he  acknowledges  that  there  is  an  aptitude  in  some  signs  to 
represent  some  things  signified*.     But  this  notion,  if  carried  to 


1  Cf.  Essay,  §  142,  '<it  must  be  acknowledged  the  visible  square  is  fitter  than 
the  visible  circle  to  represent  the  tangible  square." 


XII.] 


ON  THE  THEORY   OF   VISION. 


127 


any  extent,  is  destructive  of  the  previous  argument:  for  the 
only  reason  of  the  aptitude  must  be  that  there  is  some  sort  of 
likeness  between  the  sign  and  the  thing  signified,  or  picturing 
of  the  one  by  the  other :  whereas  his  fundamental  point  is  the 
specific  unlikeness  (so  he  calls  it,  I  should  rather  say  '  generic '). 
He  tries  to  escape  this  by  some  very  odd  reasonings  about 
language,  for  as  I  have  mentioned,  he  considers  his  signs  to 
represent  the  things  signified  in  the  same  way  as  the  words  of 
a  language  represent  the  things  they  stand  for.     Better  reason- 
ings would  have  been  of  this  kind  :  the  visual  form  of  a  square 
in  front  of  the  eye  has  a  natural  fitness  for  representing  the 
actual  form,  more  than  the  visual  variety  of  distinctnesses  has 
to  represent  actual  distance  in  a  line  from  the  eye,  in  the  same 
way  as  ^ofifieiv,  or  '  to  hum,'  has  a  natural  fitness  for  represent- 
ing the  noise  of  a  bee,  more  than  '  hive,'  or  '  house,'  have  for 
representing  the  bee's  dwelling  or  ours.     But  if  we  make  this 
more  than  exceptional,  there  is  an  end  of  all  notion  of  specific 
or  generic  dissimilarity  between  the  seen   and  the  real,  the 
immediately  and  mediately  seen :  and  it  is  clear  that  the  mass 
of  the  visual  scene  will  come  under  the  case  of  aptitude  for 
representation,  which   is  in   fact  likeness:   our  seeing  direct 
distance  from  the  eye  in  the  peculiar,  specially  syml)olic  or 
merely  suggestive  way  in  which  according  to  Berkeley  we 
do   see  it,   without  anything  corresponding  to  it   upon  the 
retina,  has  reference  at  most  to  only  a  third  of  our  vision- 
one  dimension. 

Berkeley's  paradox  comes  in  where  he  tries  to  prove 
that  the  visual  scene  before  our  eyes  is  nothing  more  than 
a  vast  tablet  of  symbols,  with  no  more  reason  (subject  to 
such  qualification  as  we  have  spoken  of)  why  they  should 
represent  the  different  things  which  they  signify,  than  there 
is  why  the  letters  1-i-o-n  should  represent  the  beast,  or  an 
ordinary  long-used  and  well-worn  Chinese  word-symbol,  for 
'  house '  say,  represent  what  we  live  in.  We  may  feel  the  most 
cordial  admiration  and  reverence  for  the  religious  application 
which  Berkeley  makes  of  his  theory,  when  he  speaks  of  the 
visibility  of  things  as  a  language  in  which  the  Creator  commu- 
nicates with  us  about  them :  but  we  are  now  concerned  with 


M 


n 


128 


ON  THE  THEORY   OF  VISION. 


[chap. 


XII.] 


ON  THE  THEORY   OF   VISION. 


129 


the  philosophical  aspect  of  his  theory:  and  on  this  surely 
there  is  only  to  be  said  that  it  either  means  nothing  {i.e.  a 
very  slightly  applicable  metaphor)  or  is  altogether  wrong. 

Of  course  we  may  say  the  visible  expresses  to  us  the  actual 
or  tangible,  and  we  may  develope  the  metaphor  into  a  detailed 
simile  more  or  less  interesting :  but  this  mere  use  of  language 
has  existed  from  the  beginning  of  the  world  and  needed  no 
Theory  of  Vision  to  enforce  it.     If  Berkeley  means  anything 
new,  he  means  something  wrong— and  in  fact  we  have  seen  how 
he  went  wrong :  he  thought  of  language  as  made  up  of  gestures 
and  inarticulate  sounds,  till  the  artificial  language  of  arbitrary 
symbols,  i.e.  sounds  and  written  words,  was  invented  as  more 
convenient :  and  it  is  this  artificial  language  to  which  he  com- 
pares visible  things.     When  we  come  at  all  to  consider  what 
language  really  is,  we  shall  find  that  the  philosophy  of  vision 
and  reality  is  in  no  possible  way  benefited,  but  only  cumbered 
and  confused  by  reference  to  it. 

There  is  one  most  interesting  illustration  given  by  Berkeley, 
which  seems  to  show  us  better  than  anything  else  what  he 
means  by  his  dissimilaHty,  and  which  more  than  anything 
points  the  way  to  our  forming  a  notion  of  the  truths 

It  is  quite  possible  to  conceive  that  the  different  parts  of 
our  nature  might  have  been  ill-fitted  to  each  other.  We  might 
conceive  this  as  to  the  eye  on  one  side,  and  as  to  the  hand  and 
the  other  members  of  the  body  on  the  other.  There  is  a  world, 
we  might  almost  say,  in  every  grain  of  dust  and  every  drop  of 
water :  and  the  visible  scene  for  the  optics  of  the  fly  or  other 
small  insect  corresponds  to  this  world.  It  is  quite  possible  for 
us  to  conceive,  as  to  ourselves,  that  we  had  eyes  adapted  to  this 
(imagined)  scene  and  world,  while  our  arms  and  legs  remained 
as  they  are,  and  adapted  as  they  are.  What  should  we  judge 
then  about  that  visible  scene,  which  we  could  not  bring  mto 

1  The  reference  is  probably  to  §  62,  ♦  Our  eyes  might  have  been  framed  in 
snch  a  manner,  as  to  be  able  to  see  nothing  but  what  were  less  than  the  minimum 
tangihiU.  In  which  case  it  is  not  impossible  that  we  might  have  perceived  aU 
the  immediate  objects  of  sight  the  very  same  that  we  do  now:  but  unto  those 
visible  appearances  there  would  not  be  connected  those  different  tangible 
magnitudes  that  are  now.' 


relation  with  our  touch  and  our  movements  ?  Should  we  judge 
it  to  have  tangible  existence,  when  no  toiwh  suggested  or  could 
test  its  having  so  ?  Should  we  not  then  be  really  blind  as  to 
the  real  world  of  our  action  and  movements,  and  would  not  the 
eye  be  to  us  a  sense  like  the  ear,  causing  in  us  a  sensation  of 
variety  of  form  and  colour,  as  that  of  variety  of  pitch  and 
quality  of  sound,  but  no  more  suggesting  to  us  any  real 
universe  of  which  we  form  a  part  than  the  ear  does  ? 

In  this  case  we  should  have  before  our  sight  a  visible  scene, 
with  microscopic  animalcules  for  cows,  sheep  and  lions,  and 
with  cells  and  tissues  in  the  place  of  the  forms  and  shapes 
of  what  we  now  call  things— a  scene  possibly  interesting  and 
beautiful :  but  we  should  be  in  regard  of  it  (let  the  reader 
remember  that  in  all  that  I  have  said  I  have  been  speaking 
from  Berkeley's  point  of  view,  not  from  my  own)  what  we  may 
call  touch-blind  or  touch-deaf— I  mean  without  the  sense  of 
touch,  as  the  blind  is  without  the  sense  of  sight :  our  imagi- 
nation would  be  visual  only,  and  it  would  never  enter  into  our 
head  that  the  animalcules  had  any  tangible  magnitude  which 
our  fingers  might  to  a  greater  or  less  degree  grasp,  or  the  cells 
any  actual  distance  from  each  other  which  our  hand  or  our 
limbs  might  traverse.  On  the  other  hand,  our  imagination  of 
the  world,  which  we  moved  in  and  in  which  things  touched  us 
and  we  them,  would  be  tactual  and  motional  only :  we  should 
be  able  to  trace  a  triangle  with  our  hand  in  the  air,  and  should 
conceive  or  remember  the  definition  of  it  as  thus  traced :  but 
we  should  have  nothing  corresponding  to  it  before  our  sight, 
nothing  visually  suggested  by  it :  our  sight  would  be  employed, 
as  we  have  just  seen,  in  a  different  sphere  and  world. 

I  think  this  shows  us  what  Berkeley  means  by  the  unliheness 
of  the  visual,  and  the  tactual  or  real  forms.  On  the  above 
supposition,  we  might  quite  well  see  a  triangular  cell,  or  three 
long  animalcules  in  such  relative  positions  as  to  make  a  triangle, 
and  notice  it  for  a  triangle  (or  whatever  name  we  gave  to  it). 
The  next  moment  we  might  be  moving  our  hand  first  hori- 
zontally, then  obliquely  downwards,  then  obliquely  upwards  to 
where  we  started  from,  or  might  be  passing  our  hand  round  a 
prism,  so  as  to  make  or  feel  a  triangle,  noticing  it  at  the  same 


m 


»fi  I 


130 


ON  THE  THEORY   OF  VISION. 


[chap. 


XII.] 


ON  THE   THEORY   OF  VISION. 


131 


It 


time  for  a  triangle,  or  whatever  we  called  it    Berkeley's  doctrine 
is  that  these  two  processes,  the  first  or  visual,  and  the  second  or 
tactual,  being,  by  the  hypothesis,  not  uniteable  by  experience 
would  not  be  conceived  as  having  anything  to  do  with  each 
other,  and  that  nothing  in  or  about  the  one  would  suggest 
anything  in  or  about  the  other.     When,  therefore,  we  find  m 
our  actual  life  that  the  triangle  of  sight  always  does  suggest 
the  real  triangle  of  touch,  this  cannot  be  through  any  resem- 
blance, for  we  have  just  seen  that   they  are  of  themselves 
mutually  unsuggestive:  it  must  be  by  an  arbitrary  arrangement 
of  the  Creator,  who  has  so  appointed  it  that,  where  we  find  the 
one  by  our  sight,  we  find  the  other  by  our  touch :  and  smce  the 
latter  is  what  we  want  to  find-the  real-we  may  fairly  consider 
the  other  a  sort  of  symbol,  guide,  mark,  mere  memorandum. 

In  this  way  it  seems  to  me  that  this  illustration  ot 
Berkeley's  shows  very  vividly  what  he  means.  I  will  now 
explain  what  I  meant  in  saying  that  it  also  seemed  to  me 
preeminently  adapted  to  direct  us  to  the  truth. 

My  own  view  in  this  matter  is  given  in  the  former  Part 
where,  speaking  of  sensation  in  generaP,  I  said  that  I  looked 
upon  the  body  as  all  one  sense,  and  that  we  became  aware 
roughly  speaking,  of  distance,  form,  magnitude,  situation,  and 
other  primary  qualities  by  movement  of  all  or  any  part  of  it. 
We  have  special  organs  of  particular  sensation  besides :  which 
have  each  more  or  less  the  character  of  members  or  limbs  of 
the  body  (moveable  by  us  and  making  us  aware  of  somethmg 
by  their  movement)  and  also  of  nervous  surfaces,  each  specially 
adapted  to  be  affected  (with  sensation  on  our  part)  by  some 
particular  natural  existence  or  agent-light,  odorous  particles, 
sapid  particles.      The  eye  is  one  such  special  organ:  by  its 
movements,  or  more  properly  by  our  movements  of  it,  we 
become  aware,  under   certain    conditions,  of   distance,  form, 
magnitude :  but  its  movements  take  place  in  association  with, 
and  partly  at  the  instigation  of,  affection  of  its  special  nerves 
by  the  light,  the  result  of  which  is  what  we  call  the  perception 
of  colour.    The  eye  thus,  in  regard  of  its  movement,  is  a  part  of 
the  whole  body  in  a  sense  in  which  it  is  not  so  in  regard  of  its 

1  Expl  21. 


affection  by  the  light.  It  has  the  latter  to  itself,  but  its  move- 
ment is  a  part  of  the  general  movement  of  the  whole  body, 
which  all  follows,  to  whatever  extent  it  does  follow,  our  volition. 
It  handles,  or  we  handle  with  it,  through  the  intermediation 
of  light,  whatever  the  variously  exciting  light  stimulates  it 
to  handle. 

Wherever  therefore  in  the  preceding  I  have  used  the  word 
t&iich,  following  other  people's  language,  what  I  have  meant  has 
been  our  knowledge  (by  means  of  movement  of  any  part  of  the 
body)  of  something  resisting  the  movement,  i.e.  of  something 
being  in  contact  with  the  body,  or  of  the  continued  absence  of 
such  resistance  where  we  were  prepared  to  meet  it  (which  is  the 
traversing  of  space).  I  have  put  this  with  the  other  because 
it  naturally  goes  with  it,  though  I  do  not  know  that  I  have 
ever  used  the  expression  'touch'  in  application  to  that. 

But  it  will  be  seen  from  this,  that  touch,  as  it  is  commonly 
spoken  of  in  reference  to  this  discussion  (I  am  not  now  speaking 
of  any  titillational  sense  there  may  possibly  be  different  from 
the  feeling  of  resistance,  nor  considering  how  delicate  this  latter 
may  be),  is  by  no  means  one  special  sense  to  be  set  by  the 
side  of  others,  but  is  the  general  corporeal  sense,  the  judging 
in  respect  to  any  supposed  thing  that  it  has  an  existence  more 
or  less  like  that  of  our  body,  because  it  communicates  or  comes 
into  contact  with  it,  and  according  to  the  manner  in  which  it 
does  this.  When  therefore  I  said  that  we  might  perfectly  make 
the  supposition  of  our  sight  and  our  touch  not  being  properly 
matched  together,  or  of  our  being  touch-blind  or  touch-deaf, 
I  meant  that  we  might  make  this  supposition  on  Berkeley's 
view,  not  that  I  could  make  it  upon  my  own  view.  In  fact  the 
great  point  of  my  difference  from  Berkeley  and  from  those 
many  philosophers  who  follow  and  admire  him  on  account  of 
the  pleasure  which  he  takes  in  arbitrary  association  and  ex- 
perience, is  that  I  think  things  (our  body  with  its  senses  and 
our  faculties  of  knowledge  among  them),  hold  together,  with 
reason  for  their  so  holding,  and  that  we  are  not  on  the  way 
towards  truth,  but  on  the  way  towards  error,  by  making  much 
of  those  notions  and  illustrations  which  would  present  them  to 
us  as  accidental  and  unconnected. 

9—2 


i^ 


if! 


132 


ON  THE  THEORY  OF  VISION. 


[chap. 


We  may  then  individually  be  imperfect  as  regards  any  one 
of  the  special  senses  (blind,  e.g.)  but  we  cannot  be  touchless,  for 
that  would  be  to  be  incorporeal.    Again,  imperfection  in  a  sense 
like  sight  is  of  a  double  nature  :  it  may  either  be  want  of  sensi- 
bility of  the  passive  or  sensor  nerve— this  is  peculiar  to  it  as  a 
special  sense— or  it  may  be  malformation  of  the  portions  of  the 
organ  connected  with  movement:  this  is  not  peculiar  to  it  as 
a  special  sense,  but  is  analogous  to  malformation,  e.g.  of  the 
hand.     Now,  we  are  each  one  of  us  one  organization,  and  the 
supposition  of  Berkele/s  which  I  have  been  expanding  is  a 
supposition  of  abnormalism,  which  might  be  made  with  just  as 
much  or  just  as  little  reason,  in  the  form  of  a  comparison 
between  the  organs  of  the  (normally)  same  sense,  as  in  the 
form  of  a  comparison  between  diflferent  senses.     How  should 
we  manage  e.g.  for  visible  picture,  if  our  eyes  were  of  quite 
different  adjustment,  and  if  with  the  one  we  saw,  and  could 
not  help  seeing,  objects  five  miles  off  or  more,  and  none  nearer, 
and  with  the  other  only  objects  at  a  distance  measured  by 
yards  ?  and  what  would  be  our  notions  of  tangible  figure  if  we 
were  blind  (I  make  this  supposition  only  to  keep  the  touch 
purer)  and  had  for  our  prehensile  organs  two  hands  entirely 
out  of  proportion  the  one  to  the  other,  so  that  we  could  make 
nothing  with  the  one  of  small  things,  and  nothing  with  the 
other  of  big  ones,  so  as  to   establish   any  relation  between 

them  ? 

I  make  these  suppositions,  extravagant  like  Berkeley's,  in 
order  to  show  that  the  question  about  this  association  and 
experience  is  not  limited  to  the  relation  between  sight  and 
touch,  but  is  only  one  portion  of  the  general  question  of  the 
association  of  any  one  sensation  with  another.  Were  our  sight 
microscopic  only,  and  our  touch  what  it  is  now,  the  two  sets  of 
sensations  would  be  unassociable  together;  but  just  in  the  same 
way,  if  we  had  one  hand  fit  only  for  microscopic  manipulation, 
and  the  other  of  a  kind  to  grasp  houses  and  church-towers,  and 
could  not  help  the  matter  by  sight  or  movement,  the  different 
sensations  of  touch  would  be  mutually  unassociable,  we  having 
no  means  of  comparing  large  and  small  things,  and  the  word 
unlike  would  have  exactly  the  same  meaning  (or  no-meaning). 


XII.] 


ON  THE  THEORY   OF   VISION. 


133 


as  applied  to  express  the  relation  between  the  small  cube  of 
one  hand  and  the  large  one  of  the  other,  that  it  had  to  express 
the  relation  between  the  square  of  sight  and  the  square  of 
touch  in  Berkeley's  supposition  of  the  uncomparableness  of  the 
two  senses. 

I  hope  to  speak  in  a  separate  chapter*  about  association  and 
experience,  about  which  I  will  only  say  now  that  by  'experience' 
we  mean  experience  of  the  universe  through  our  physical 
organization,  and  that  every  use  of  the  word,  to  have  any 
meaning,  takes  for  granted  the  general  organization  which 
underlies  each  part,  and  which  must  be  one  and  a  whole,  or  it 
is  nothing.  All  sensations  have  to  be  associated  together  by 
experience,  different  sensations  of  touch  one  with  another,  quite 
as  much  as  sensations  of  sight  with  either  of  them.  The  newly 
couched  man  beginning  to  move  his  eyes  in  judging  of  the 
distance  of  the  orange  before  him,  makes  exceedingly  bad  shots 
at  it  with  his  hands  in  the  process  of  learning  to  associate  sight 
and  touch,  but  only  in  the  same  way  as  the  infant,  in  trying 
we  will  say  to  take  hold  of  the  same  orange,  will  very  likely  hit 
it  with  one  hand  when  he  will  not  with  the  other,  being 
occupied,  for  his  part,  in  learning  to  associate  different  sensa- 
tions of  touch,  or  volitional  movements  of  his  two  hands. 

The  special  senses  (as  I  have  called  them)  in  so  far  as  they 
are  special,  are  each  isolated  fi-om  the  general  corporeal  sense, 
or  perception  of  the  relation  of  the  body  (as  to  form,  magnitude, 
position,  solidity)  to  the  portions  of  the  universe  about  it :  we 
cannot  help,  at  least  at  present,  each  having  for  himself  his  own 
world  of  pure  colour,  taste,  smell,  and  we  can  bring  these  very 
little  into  relation  with  each  other.  But  the  sense  of  sight  is 
very  much  more  than  a  special  sense  of  the  kind  I  have  just 
alluded  to.  It  is  composed  of  a  nei-vous  susceptibility  mixed 
with  a  complicated  organization  for  adjustment,  which  makes  it 
in  fact  a  hand  as  well  as  a  palate,  and  starts  that  knowledge  of 
distance,  form,  magnitude,  position,  which  then  refers  itself  to 
our  general  corporeal  sensation,  or  knowledge  of  the  universe, 
by  the  association  of  its  movements  with  the  more  distinctly 

^  This  does  not  appear  to  Lave  been  written. 


I 


I 


<t 


iBse 


•^- 


m 


134 


ON  THE  THEORY   OF   VISION. 


[chap. 


XII.] 


ON  THE  THEORY   OF   VISION. 


135 


I 


»     1 


noticeable  and  mensurational  movements  of  the  hand  and  other 
parts  of  the  body.  I  will  not  dwell  on  this,  as  I  shall  have  to 
speak  a  little  more  about  it  in  discussing  'association.'  The 
point  now  is,  that  it  is  in  consequence  of  this  double  character 
of  the  eye  that  the  visual  scene  is  what  it  is.  We  usually,  in 
describing  sight,  say  that  it  is  the  sense  for  colour,  as  a  secondary 
quality,  having  superadded  to  it  (if  we  allow  this)  some  arrange- 
ments which  enable  us  to  perceive  with  it  certain  primary 
qualities  also,  e.g.  form  of  some  kind.  Suppose  we  alter  the 
order  of  the  description  of  it,  and  say  that  it  is  a  hand,  with  a 
special  nervous  susceptibility  in  the  palm  of  it,  which  enables 
us  to  know,  about  what  we  handle,  something  more  than  the 
simple  handling  would  inform  us  of.  We  handle,  it  is  true, 
mediately,  by  means  of  light :  but  we  handle.  And  this  is  a 
truer  description  of  sight  in  relation  to  touch  than  the  other  in 
this  particular  view  :  in  sight  we  have  tactual  knowledge  of  the 
universe,  with  something  superadded.  The  true  imagination  or 
mental  picturing,  whether  with  the  object  before  us  so  as  to  be 
sight,  or  without  it  so  as  to  be  what  we  more  generally  call 
imagination,  superadds  to  the  quasi-imagination,  or  conception 
of  his  own  body  and  of  the  universe  around  it,  on  the  part  of 
a  man  bom  blind,  who  has  touched  and  moved,  but  never  seen — 
it  superadds,  I  say,  to  this  not  merely  the  secondary  beauties  of 
colour  but  a  virtual  extension  of  the  sense  of  touch,  by  means 
of  light,  to  incalculable  distances  from  our  body,  and  continuously 
over  every  portion  of  body  and  space  upon  one  side  of  us,  leaving 
no  gap.  It  is  this  which  makes  us  talk  of  the  universe:  whether 
the  tactual  quasi-imagination  of  the  blind  above  mentioned 
would  suggest  the  notion  of  the  universe  I  cannot  tell,  I  wish 
we  knew :  but  as  it  is,  it  is  the  visible  scene  or  visible  universe 
which  makes  us  talk  of  a  universe  at  all:  there  is  no  doubt  of 

this. 

Sight  then  may  fairly  put  in  a  claim  to  its  share  in  giving 
us  our  notion  of  reality,  and  may  with  reason  put  in  its  protest 
against  what  I  must  call  the  monstrous  Berkeleian  supposition, 
that  its  objects  are  nothing  but  a  set  of  symbols,  with  no  other 
value,  independent  of  their  beauty,  than  that  they  suggest  to 
us  objects  of  touch.     Their  reality,  as  objects  of  rightly  used 


sight,  is  the  same  as  that  which  attaches  to  the  objects  of 
rightly  used  touch.  Sight  and  touch  then,  or,  as  I  should 
describe  it,  the  particular  organization  of  the  eye  for  purposes 
of  knowledge,  its  power  of  movement  and  its  susceptibility 
to  light  on  the  one  side,  and  on  the  other  side  all  the  rest  of 
the  general  organization  of  the  body,  sO  far  as  it  helps  us  to 
knowledge — each  of  these  may  be  considered  to  constitute 
about  half,  or  to  balance  each  other,  in  respect  of  our  gaining 
knowledge  of  the  universe. 

Mr  Abbott  seems  to  me  to  try  to  make  out  that  there  is 
more  reality  in  the  visible  world  (or  scene)  than  in  the  tactual : 
that  the  former  tells  us  more  about  reality  than  the  other.  As 
I  have  said,  sight  tells  us  about  reality  (as  we  will  speak  of 
reality  now)  in  so  far  as  it  is  itself  a  species  of  touch,  compli- 
cated indeed  and  mediate,  and  in  no  other  manner.  The 
notion,  that  in  sight  we  see  space  by  any  manner  of  special 
intuition,  is  rendered  chimerical  in  an  instant  by  the  thought 
of  the  physical  necessities,  or  conditions  of  light  and  of  the 
atmosphere,  which  go  to  the  sense  of  sight  as  we  have  it.  Let 
us  suppose  light  to  be  'offspring  of  heaven  first-born  or  co- 
eternal  beam  of  the  Eternal,'  something  almost  like  space  itself 
in  its  antiquity,  its  universality,  and  its  fundamentality,— yet, 
for  sight  as  the  foundation  of  our  imagination  and  as  what 
suggests  to  us  the  universe  around  us,  there  has  to  exist  the 
earth's  atmosphere,  a  something  which,  whatever  it  may  be 
in  comparison  with  actual  solid  objects,  yet  in  comparison  with 
space  must  be  held  to  be  in  itself  of  a  gross,  corporeal,  acci- 
dental character.  What  we  see  when  light  is  present,  is 
illumination  or,  if  we  prefer  the  expression,  illuminated  objects. 
The  groundwork  of  the  visible  scene  is  the  illuminated  atmo- 
sphere. Were  we  reduced  to  space  (which  is  what  Mr  Abbott 
thinks  we  see),  i.e.  were  the  atmosphere  to  vanish,  we  might  see 
objects  indeed  (if  it  were  so)  but  without  any  ground  or  con- 
tinuousness,  any  bridging  between  them;  i.e.  our  universe, 
or  notion  of  wholeness  and  'togetherness*  of  things,  would 
vanish  at  once.  If  we  see  space  at  all,  that  is  space  which  we 
see  when  we  are  in  total  darkness  but  with  our  eyes  open,  and 
when  we  are  endeavouring,  so  to  speak,  to  use  them, — a  very 


I' 

n 


i 


I 


i 


i 


?^ 


I 


'  f 


i 


136 


ON  THE   THEORY   OF  VISION. 


[chap. 


unsatisfactory  intuition.  Suppose,  e.g.  we  are  looking  out  of 
the  window  into  perfect  darkness:  on  a  sudden  there  appear 
to  us  two  stars,  not  very  far  from  oue  another :  we  are  aware 
of  the  interval  or  apparent  distance  between  them,  and  may  be 
said  to  see  it:  on  a  sudden  the  stars  vanish,  our  eyes  still 
watching  exactly  in  the  same  direction :  do  we  now  see  the 
interval — no  longer  properly  describable  as  an  interval  ?  If  we 
did  see  it,  surely  we  must  see  it  still:  and  if  we  do  see  it, 
considering  all  is  darkness,  we  may  in  the  same  manner  be  said 
to  see  the  other  dark  space  about  it.  The  fact  is,  the  eye  is 
here  reduced  to  its  function  as  a  hand,  and  if  we  move  the  eye 
before  the  dark  space,  we  may  be  said  to  see  the  dark  space 
by  the  process  of  traversing  and  measuring  in  the  same  way  in 
which  we  might  be  said  to  feel  the  vacant  space  if  we  moved 
our  hand  along  it :  but  this  dark  space,  whatever  we  may  think 
about  it,  is  the  only  space  we  can  see,  and  we  see  it  with  the 
eye  not  as  a  special  sense,  but  simply  as  a  moving  member  of 
the  body. 

Space  is  vacancy,  room  for  things :  cognizable  by  means  of 
any  sense  or  any  part  of  the  body  only  in  effort  after  the  appre- 
hension of  things,  and  as  a  kind  of  recognition  of  the  temporary 
abortiveness  of  the  effort.  It  is  understood  by  us  as  that  in 
which  things  might  be,  but  in  which,  we  find,  they  are  not : 
it  is  thus,  mentally,  a  kind  of  expectation  of  things  or  mental 
anticipation  of  a  reality  to  be  known,  and  in  this  way  it  may 
not  unfitly  be  described  as  the  form  or  outline  (coeval  with  the 
sense  itself,  and  to  be  filled  up  as  to  particulars  by  experience) 
or  again  as  the  subjective  portion  of  sensive  apprehension. 
This  is  what  we  may  be  said  to  see  or  handle,  when  we  use 
the  sense  so  far  as  our  effort  is  concerned,  but  no  object 
responds.  Simple  space  considered  objectively  or  as  a  part 
of  the  universe,  is  neither  visible  nor  tangible :  it  is  simply 
traversable,  either  by  the  hand  or  by  the  moving  eye  in  their 
way  to  what  they  are  seeking:  the  spatial  relations  are 
determined  by  the  amount  of  traverse.  If  we  like  to  call 
this  seeing  space,  well  and  good,  only  it  is  a  seeing  different 
from  that  with  which  we  see  objects  by  means  of  radiation 
or  reflection  of  the  light  from  them :  space  neither  radiates  nor 


XII.] 


ON   THE  THEORY   OF  VISION. 


137 


reflects.  Any  one  who  says  '  we  see  space '  must  be  prepared 
also  to  say  '  we  handle  it ' :  in  a  manner  we  do  both :  we  look 
or  grope,  and  the  something -nothing,  which  meets  us  in  the 
abortive  effort  to  see  or  find,  is  vacancy  or  space :  it  is  certainly 
something,  for  we  predicate  qualities  of  it,  and  as  we  traverse  it, 
we  know  we  are  traversing  it,  in  whatever  way,  it  makes  itself 
felt  by  us :  but  it  is  no  thing,  no  object :  it  is  only  what  meets 
us  disappointingly  as  we  seek  an  object. 

Mr  Abbott  says  against  Mr  Bain,  that  space  is  not  mere 
movement,  and  that  our  notion  of  space  is  something  quite 
different  from  our  consciousness  of  movement.  Apparently 
Mr  Abbott  would  wish  to  make  us  forget  that  our  philosophy 
must  be  good  for  night  as  well  as  for  day,  and  would  give  us 
for  notion  of  space  that  sight,  with  subsequent  imagination,  of 
illuminated  atmosphere  which  we  have  just  discussed.  What- 
ever may  be  right,  this  cannot  be.  Whereas  Mr  Bain  is 
certainly  right  so  far  as  he  goes.  Traversableness  (or  move- 
ableness  in)  is  one  character  and  predicate  of  space,  whatever 
others  it  may  have,  and  may  be  the  one  character  by  which 
it  becomes  known  to  us.  I  will  not  discuss  now  what  is  the 
proper  or  full  notion  of  space,  but  evidently  Mr  Bain's  is  a  true 
one. 

Not  that  I  wish  to  make  reality  in  itself  all  dark  and 
dismal,  and  to  look  upon  the  illumination  of  it,  by  which  we 
see  it,  as  a  mere  falsification — in  other  words,  to  deprive  the 
beautiful  scene  of  its  character  of  being  a  true  version  of  reality, 
reality  not  only  of  the  tangible  objects,  but  of  the  space 
containing  them.  The  two  things  which  have  to  concur  as 
conditions  for  our  sight  as  it  is,  light  and  the  atmosphere, 
are  not  simply,  in  our  present  concern  with  them,  physical 
existences,  but  have  each  their  peculiar  relation  to  us  as  thus 
concurring  in  our  sensation.  The  atmosphere,  e.g.  though 
physical  and  even  tangible,  is  what  we  may  call  a  likeness 
or  representation  of  space  to  us,  since  we  can  readily  move 
through  it,  and  grossly  tangible  objects  readily  displace  it,  in 
such  a  way  that  there  seems  nothing  for  them  to  displace :  it 
is  space  in  a  way  half-filled,  filled  but  not  filled,  filled  as 
against  vacancy,  but  vacant  as  against  gross  things.     And  since 


f 


138 


ON   THE  THEORY   OF  VISION. 


[chap. 


ON  THE  THEORY   OF   VISION. 


139 


i 


the  atmosphere  is  illuminable,  as  we  have  seen,  we  have — not 
the  impossibility,  illuminated  or  properly  visible  space,  but — an 
illuminated  likeness  or  representation  of  it ;  not  a  symbol,  as 
Berkeley  would  say,  but  a  resemblance,  the  atmosphere  really 
resembling  vacancy  in  the  manner  which  I  have  mentioned 
above. 

It  is  not,  I  think,  through  any  particular  partiality  for 
middle  courses  that  I  thus  take  a  sort  of  middle  ground 
between  Mr  Abbott  and  Berkeley,  unable  to  allow  to  the  visible 
scene  the  amount  of  reality  (as  compared  with  touch)  which 
Mr  Abbott  claims  for  it,  but  claiming  for  it  myself  more  than 
Berkeley  would  allow.  We  should  have  no  notion  of  the  wide 
prospects  of  earth  or  the  vast  spaces  of  the  heavens  without 
sight ;  but  there  would  be  no  meaning  in  the  notion  of  them 
as  wide  or  vast,  without  the  humble  experiences  of  our  own 
individual  handling  and  walking.  If  we  contemplated  simply, 
without  return  upon  ourselves  as  measure,  there  would  be 
nothing  to  contemplate,  no  large  or  small,  no  solid  or  vacant. 
As  between  Berkeley  and  his  opponents,  I  think  the  question 
long  ago  got  upon  a  wrong  issue,  and  that  there  is  no  occasion 
to  displace  it  from  the  ground  on  which  men  seem  from  the 
first  to  have  placed  it  and  discussed  it,  only  that  we  must  look 
at  it  carefully,  not  superficially. 

Suppose  there  were  no  such  sense  as  sight  and  (if  we  like  it) 
no  such  physical  existence  as  light,  but  that  we  had  somehow  or 
other  a  knowledge  of  the  real  universe  as  extensive  as  we  have 
now:  how  could  we  conceive  ourselves  to  have  this?  or  of 
what  nature  would  it  be  ?  We  must  then,  in  a  manner,  have 
toiwhed  everything  that  we  know  of  as  existing :  we  must  have 
a  sort  of  tactual  quasi-imagination  of  the  universe,  a  sort  of 
mental  figuration,  without  notion  of  sight  or  illumination. 
I  think  we  can  only  conceive  this  at  all  by  the  supposition 
of  a  sort  of  presence  of  ourselves  at  will  at  everything  which 
we  suppose  existing.  The  universe  then  would  not  appear  to 
stand  off  from  us  as  it  does  now,  and  we  should  be  present,  in 
a  way,  all  over  it.  The  things  which  we  knew  as  existing  we 
should  know  tactually,  i.e.  all  over  them,  and  in  their  solid 
shape :  there  would  be  no  far-ofif  or  near,  but  we  should  know 


XII.] 

distance  in  one  part  of  the  universe  in  the  same  way  as  in 
another;  and  the  things  which  we  knew  would  be  the  same 
to  us  at  all  times ;  we  should  never  mistake  or  fail  td  recognize 

them. 

Let  us  suppose  (if  we  can)  a  being  with  knowledge  of  the 
universe  like  this,  and  that  it  is  proposed  to  him  to  change  his 
way  of  knowing  for  ours  now,  i.e.  by  sight  combined  with  very 
limited  corporeal  touch  and  movement.  What  will  be  the 
advantages  and  disadvantages  of  the  change  ?  And  how  will 
the  proposer  of  it  describe  or  recommend  it  to  him  ? 

'You  will  be  confined,'  he  will  say  to  him,  'to  one  very 
limited  portion  of  space,  and  always  have  to  be  conscious  of 
yourself  as  there :  there  will  be  a  new  existence  in  creation, 
light,  which  will  radiate  from  its  source,  fill  the  atmosphere  and 
be  refracted  about  in  all  directions,  and  broken  into  various 
qualities  or  colours;  which  will  strike  against  objects  and  be 
reflected  about  in  all  directions  again,  or  perhaps  intercepted : 
you  will  have  given  to  you  an  organ  with  provision  for  the 
discrimination  of  the  qualities  of  the  light  when  it  strikes,  and 
also  with  provision  for  self-adjustment,  or  for  your  own  adjust- 
ment, according  to  the  directions  in  which  it  strikes.     Look 
then  at  the  advantages  and  disadvantages  of  the  change :  on 
the  proposed  scheme  you  will  know  at  one  time  one  side  only 
of  things,  instead  of  feeling  them  all  over,  i.e.  you  will  look, 
in  a  manner,  only  at  half  the  universe :  the  light  will  strike 
according  to  its  geometrical  laws,  which  will  distort  the  shapes 
of  things,  so  that  you  will  no  longer  know  them  in  their  real 
solid  shapes,  as  you  did  by  the  mental  handling:   one  thing 
will  hide  another,  and  you  will  have  very  imperfect  means  of 
knowing  distance  along  the  direction  away  from  your  eye,  nor 
any  perfect  means  of  knowing  any  distance,  distance  being,  so 
to    call   it,  distorted,   like   shapes.     Your    means   of   helping 
yourself  will  be  your  corporeal  touch  and  movement,  which 
however  of  course  you  will  find  very  limited.     On  the  other 
hand  you   will   now  be   able   to  appreciate   the   relations  of 
distance,  form,  magnitude  of  things,  so  far  as  you  do  appreciate 
them,  all  in  a  moment  or,  as  you  will  call  it,  at  a  glance :  the 
universe  will  be  one  to  you  in  a  way  in  which  nothing  else 


«o! 


'  Vn 


i 


11 

!      r 
I? 


\       1 


140 


ON   THE   THEORY   OF   VISION. 


[chap. 


j  it 


could  present  it  as  such:  the  light,  owing  to  the  manner  in 
which  it  will  change  its  quality  in  striking  on  objects,  or  give 
them  colour,  will  inform  you  of  something  about  them  which 
you  could  not  have  known  otherwise:  and  with  all  this  you 
will  acquire  the  sense  of  visual  beauty :  you  will  think  of  the 
universe  not  only  as  something  to  be  handled  and  to  be  acted 
in,  but  as  something  glorious  and  interesting  to  contemplate.' 
More  might  be  said  on  each  side :  I  am  inclined  to  think,  were 
I  the  individual,  I  wmld  change  my  old  way  of  knowledge  for 

the  new. 

In  what  I  am  now  going  to  say,  I  shall  put  the  word 
imagination  to  hard,  but  careful  use,  but  I  think  that  the 
free  use  of  it,  with  attention  on  the  part  of  the  reader,  is  the 
best  way  not  to  mislead. 

The  above  imagination  then  of  a  sort  of  tactual  (though 
possibly  only  mental)  presence  with  things  may  seem  absurd : 
but  what  is  necessary  is,  that  we  should  somehow  set  before 
our  mind  a  quasi-imagination  of  the  continuous  or  wide  universe, 
not  visual  but  some  way  tactual,  and  therefore  exhibiting  to  us 
actual  reality  which  is  in  the  tangible,  if  we  would  at  all  make 
out  the  relation  of  the  visible  scene  to  the  corresponding  reality. 
We  must  have  something  to  compare  the  visible  scene  with, 
and  then  we  shall  see  what  relation  it  bears  to  this,  whether 
symbolic  or  otherwise.  It  is  plain  however  that  Berkeley  for 
instance  does  not  dream  of  anything  of  this  kind,  or  see  the 
necessity  of  it.  Steeped  in  what  I  have  called  the  bad  psy- 
chology, which  supposes  things  existing  and  known  before  us 
and  then  investigates  how  we  come  by  the  ideas  of  them,  he 
considers  us  to  be  situated  in  the  middle  of  the  wide  universe 
of  things  and  knowing  ourselves  to  be  so,  which  we  only  do  by 
sight,  and  then  says  this  sight  is  only  symbolic,  a  chimera  if  we 
think  it  true,  something  quite  unlike  the  reality.  Why  how, 
except  visually,  can  you  or  do  you  conceive  or  imagine  the 
unitary  reality,  I  mean  the  reality  (as  individual  things  and  as 
parts  of  the  universe)  of  things,  which  are  beyond  your  reach 
and  too  large  for  your  grasp  and  too  vast  for  your  exploration  ? 
If  you  say  the  visible  scene  is  not  the  reality,  that  the  moon  of 
sight  is  not  the  real  moon,  but  a  symbol  of  it,  and  that  the  vast 


XII.] 


ON  THE  THEORY   OF  VISION. 


141 


scene  apparently  before  us,  of  which  it  forms  a  part  is  a  col- 
lection  of  similar  symbols,-well  then  conceive  me  and  describe 
me  the  non-visual  or  real  conception  or  quasi-imagmation  which 
corresponds  to  this  visual  scene  and  of  which  it  is  a  symbolic 
tablet,  for   I   suppose   you   have   such,  since  you   apparently 
conceive  the  real,  and  are  able,  by  comparison  of  the  visible 
scene  with  it,  to  say  that  this  latter  is  only  symbolic.     You 
have  not  such  a  thing  ?  but  where  then  is  the  second  member 
of  your  comparison  ?  are  you  really  conceiving  and  imagining 
reality  visually  yourself,  beyond  the  range  of  your  limited  touch 
and  movement,  all  this  time  that  you  are  talking  of  the  pre- 
iudice  and  mistake  of  people  in  general  in  thinking  this  reality, 
and  are  you  only  comparing  sight  with  sight,  or  else  sight  with 
something  (if  we  may  call  it  so)  which  is  no  conception,  nothmg 
appearing  to  the  mind  as  one,  no  presentation,  but  something  of 
which  it  is  impossible  to  imagine  a  symbol,  some  description, 
perhaps,   or    catalogue    of  all  the   properties    of   the   reality 
corresponding  to  the  visible   moon.     But   what   we   want   to 
have,  somehow,  in  our  conception  or  imagination  is  the  reality 
itself:  otherwise  it  is  nonsense,  unless  we  know  the  thing  by 
divination,  to  pronounce  anything  a  symbol  of  it. 

The  sum  of  all  this  is,  that  we  cannot  understand  properly 
the  relation  of  the  visual  scene  or  imagination  to  reality,  except 
so  far  as  we  have  a  conception  of  reality  not  only  pure  and 
non-visual,  but  corresponding  to  the  visual,  so  that  we  may 
compare  the  visual  with  it.     Suppose  reality  to  be  tangibility, 
and  say  therefore  that  we  have  a  pure  conception  of  the  reality 
of  the  thing  which  we  touch ;  yet  how  can  this  conception  be 
considered  at  all  correspondent  to  the  vast  visual  conception 
which  we  have  of  the  continuous  universe  with  the  objects  of 
it  so  as  to  compare  with  it?    Were  there  no  such  thing  as  light 
and  eyes,  what  sort  of  conception  should  we  have  of  Mont 
Blanc  as  a  thing,  a  mountain,  even  if  we  had  passed  our  life 
in  walking  over  it  ?    It  is  our  eyes  and  our  hand  together,  not 
the  one  on  the  behalf  of  the  other:  it  is  our  ocular  measurement 
of  the  off-standing  and  remote,  in  conjunction  with  our  manual 
(or  generally  corporeal)  measurement  of  the  contiguous,  which 
creates  to  us  reality,  or  makes  things  things  to  us. 


142 


ON  THE   THEORY   OF  VISION.  [CHAP.  XII. 


it 


i     V 


\    \ 


For  reasons  involved  in  what  has  been  just  said,  I  have 
throughout  and  carefully  spoken  of  the  visible  scene,  thinking 
this  the  vaguest  word,  more  vague  than  prospecty  a  word  which 
seemed  to  involve  (what  I  did  not  wish  to  assume)  sight,  and 
different  from  picture,  which  might  give  what  I  think  a  wrong 
view  of  the  relation  to  reality.  We  cannot  say  that  what  we 
see  is  a  picture  of  reality,  because  it  seems  to  me  that  we  do 
not  know,  except  with  the  concurrence  of  this  as  one  important 
means  what  reality  is,  and  therefore  are  not  in  a  position 
to  pronounce  this,  or  anything,  a  likeness  of  it;  and  also 
because  all  our  notions  of  picture,  likeness,  etc.  are  taken 
from  this,  and  cannot  with  any  meaning  be  applied  back  to 
it.  We  should  define  a  picture  as  a  reproduction  or  repetition, 
by  whatever  means  of  the  visual  thing,  or  thing  as  we  see  it : 
and  therefore  it  is  a  mockery  of  definition  to  counterdefine  the 
visual  thing  as  the  picture  of  the  thing.  For  the  same  reason 
I  think  we  can  attach  no  important  meaning  to  the  notion  of 
likeness  between  visible  things  and  the  real  ones:  the  notion 
may  reasonably  suggest  itself  to  us  when  we  read  Berkeley's 
extraordinary  language  about  their  specific  unlikeness,  but  the 
fact  is,  they  are  not  like,  because  they  are  the  things  themselves. 
That  is,  they  are  a  phase,  view,  side,  partial  and  incomplete 
manifestation  of  them  under  special  conditions,  or  what  we  may 
describe  in  many  similar  manners :  the  sort  of  way  in  which  it 
is  so,  is  plain  from  what  I  said  a  short  time  since  about  the  ad- 
vantages and  disadvantages  of  knowing  things  specially  by  sight. 

In  spite  of  Mr  Abbott's  singular  language  about  seeing,  not 
touching,  being  believing — (he  apparently  forgets  S.  Thomas, 
who  was  said  to  have  believed  because  he  saw,  but  whose  seeing 
was  not  considered  complete  for  its  purpose  without  being 
confirmed  or  reinforced  by  touch),  there  is  no  doubt  but  that 
there  is  understood  truth  in  touching  and  handling,  more  than 
in  seeing.  The  latter  may  be  illusion,  the  other  not.  In  fact, 
seeing  is  a  complicated  handling,  which  gives  us  reality,  unless 
there  are  physical  reasons  for  its  misleading  us,  but  in  regard 
of  which  it  is  more  difl&cult  to  ascertain  whether  there  may  not 
be  such  reasons  than  in  the  very  simple  process  of  handling  a 
thing  with  our  hands. 


BOOK  II. 


IMMEDIATENESS  AND  REFLECTION. 


i 

I 


1 


I 


CHAPTER  1. 


SELF-SELF  AND  THOUGHT-SELF.  IMMEDIATE,  AS  DIS- 
TINGUISHED FROM  REFLECTIONAL,  THOUGHT  AND 
ACTION. 

The  self-self. 

By  the  'self-self  I  mean  that  which  cannot  really  be 
thought  of,  i.e.  which  cannot  be  made  an  object  of  thought, 
but  which  is  with-thought  (mitgedacht),  thought  along  with, 
or  included  in,  our  immediate  thought  and  feeling,  or  which,  in 
other  words,  is  one  of  the  essential  elements  of  such  thought  or 
feeling.  There  is  a  sort  of  contradiction  here,  for  by  attempting 
to  make  the  reader  understand  what  it  is,  I  am  making  it  an 
object  of  thought:  it  is  therefore  to  be  remembered,  that  when 
we  talk  of  it  we  are  making  a  supposition  only,  which  requires 
accompanying  correction  in  our  mind,  or  the  accompanying 
thought  that,  for  the  purpose  of  talking  about  it,  we  are 
obliged  to  make  a  supposition  about  it,  which  is  for  the 
occasion  only. 

There  is  the  same  difficulty  in  describing  immediate  thought 
or  feeling,  of  which  the  self-self  is  one  element.  I  mean  by  it 
thought  or  feeling  primary  or  by  itself,  as  distinguished  from 
reflective  thought  or  feeling,  which  I  shall  explain.  If  we  use 
the  word  consciousness,  it  is  consciousness  as  distinguished  from 
self-consciousness  and  from  perception,  i.e.  consciousness  dis- 
tinguishing only  between  a  permanent,  pleasure  and  pain-feeling, 
self-self,  on  the  one  side,  and  on  the  other,  a  successive  variety 
of  feeling  or  thought,  which  is  not  pleasure  or  pain,  or  of  the 
nature  of  them ;  while  yet  the  successive  and  different  portions 

M.  10 


f 


146 


THE  SELF-SELF. 


[chap. 


I.] 


THE   THOUGHT-SELF. 


147 


1 1 


are  only  distinguishable  among  themselves,  without  a  possibility, 
previous  to  reflection,  of  their  being  distinctively  characterised. 
The  state  of  immediate  thought   or   feeling  is   what   we,  a^ 
developed  and  educated  intelligences,  can  only  by  imagination 
approximate  to,  or  in  various  ways  sujp^ose  for  our  purpose      It 
is  thmight,  with  the  object  of  it  as  yet  in  embryo-the  object 
distinguished  indeed  from  the  subject,  as  for  any  thought,  or 
even  for  feeling,  it  must  be,  but  not  yet  separated  from  it  not 
yet  placed  out  from  us  or  held  out  before  us  to  be  contemplated 
(in  this  outness  I  do  not  imply  space,  but  only  something  ot 
which  space  may  be  taken  as  a  suggestion),  the  subject  and 
object  not  yet  set  in  antithesis  the  one  to  the  other. 

I  do  not  mean  to  say  however  that  in  our  developed 
intelligence,  immediate  thought  is  superseded  and  has  ceased 
to  exist,  though  we  cannot  present  it  to  ourselves :  all  thought 
is  properly  immediate,  or  has  a  base  of  immediateness  in  it, 
but  the  development  of  thought  is  the  mixture  or  conjunction 
of  reflection  with  this  in  such  a  manner  that  we  cannot 
disentangle  them. 

The  thought-self. 

The  *  thought-self'  is  that,  more  or  less  distinctly  conceived, 
which  I  have  been  obliged  inevitably  to  foreshadow  and  suppose 
in  trying  to  describe  or  set  in  view  the  '  self-self.'  As  soon  as 
we  in  any  degree  distinctly  conceive  of  ourselves  thinking,  it  is 
evident  that  thought  is  no  longer  simple  or  immediate.  We 
are  ourselves  then  dmhle.  And  we  are  this  as  soon  as  ever  we 
set  the  object  of  thought  out  before  us  as  a  separate  object  to 
contemplate.  Concurrently  with  this,  we  necessarily  separate 
(bisect  or  double)  ourselves. 

It  does  not  matter,  it  seems  to  me,  whether  we  say,  with  Mr 
Ferrier,  that  we  only  distinctly  conceive  an  object  by  conceiving 
ourselves  as  conceiving  it,  or  whether  we  say,  with  Mr  Herbert 
Spencer  that  we  only  distinctly  conceive  ourselves  by  conceiving 
ourselves  as  an  object  similar  (more  or  less)  to  other  objects 
which  we  have  previously  conceived.  The  advance  of  thought, 
in  my  view,  is  the  simultaneous  development  of  the  distinct 
conception  of  ourselves,  or  our  personality,  and  the  distinct 


conception  of  objects  of  thought  as  independent  of  us:  and 
each  conception  brings  out  the  other.  By  an  object  of  thought, 
as  distinctly  conceived,  we  mean  something  standing  off  from, 
though  connected  with,  our  thinking,  and  we  cannot  mean  this 
without  a  co-conception  of  ourselves,  from  which  the  other  is 
relieved:  nor  is  there  any  means  of  setting  ourselves  before 
ourselves,  as  something  to  be  thought  of,  without  distinguishing 
ourselves  from  something  else. 

The  passage  onward  from  immediate  thought  to  the  thought 
of  ourselves  and  of  objects  of  thought  in  contradistinction,  and 
the  advance  still  onwards  in  thought,  in  the  distinctification 
and  characterization  of  each  of  these  elements  of  thought  and 
their  developments,  I  shall  call,  for  my  own  purposes,  by  the 
name  of  reflection. 

Immediate  thought  I  have,  in  a  portion  of  what  I  have 
written,  called  by  the  name  of  'impression,'  carefully  disclaiming, 
in  the  use  of  the  word,  any  reference  to  its  being  possibly 
impressed  ah  extra\  It  is  probable  that  no  word  can  be  used 
to  express  it  without  some  provision  of  this  kind  against  what 
the  word  may  imply.  The  word  'intuition,'  or  its  correspondent 
*  Anschauung,'  is  a  most  misleading  word :  for  by  its  reference 
to  sight  it  inevitably  suggests  an  object  supposed  to  exist 
standing  off  from  us  and  independent  of  us,  than  which  nothing 
can  be  supposed  more  incongruous  with  the  notion  of  immediate 
thought.  Intuition  therefore,  if  used  to  express  our  immediate 
intellectual  state  in  reference  to  what  we  call  the  world  about 
us  (as  distinguished  from  our  relation  to  it  in  our  developed 
state  of  intelligence,  when  we  look  around  us  and  see  things,  as 
we  call  them,  which  we  know,  and  recognise,  and  name),  must 
be  carefully  guarded  against  any  suggestion  of  this  kind,  or 
it  perverts  the  whole  notion  of  philosophy.  It  is  the  same 
with  the  term  'experience,'  which  I  will  not,  however,  speak 
further  of  now. 

What  I  have  called  reflection,  in  its  character  of  the  joint 
perception  of  ourselves  and  the  objects  of  our  thought,  is  what 
has  been  called  '  apperception/ 


*  See  Book  i.,  ch.  v.  above. 


10—2 


) 


148  IMMEDIATE,  AS  DISTINGUISHED  FROM  [CHAP. 

Immediate,  as  distinguished  from  reflectional, 
thmight  and  action. 

When  Descartes,  in  Ms  attempt  to  reach  the  bottom  of 
thines   says,  'I  think,  therefore  I  am,'  what  'I  thmk    here 
e^r— i;  immediate  thought.    But  the  state  of  D-cartes^ 
Jnd  when  he  says  this,  is  not  a  state  of  ^-fj-*^' ^»\°f 
reaectional  thought.    Though  what  l>\«*y'/ ,  f  f  l''^'   ^^  • 
state  of  his  mind  is  '  I  am  thinking  that  (or  how)  I  th  nk 
The   state  therefore  is  one   of  self-consciousness,  but  not  ot 
admitted  self-consciousness:  it  is  a  state  of  ^^If-^^^-^-^tJ 
inevitable  in  the  effort  to  realize  or  present  immediate  thought 
And  though  immediate   thought,  when   made  an    object    ot 
thought  (i  by  me  a  short  time  since  in  trying  to  describe 
t)  i  so  far  iated  and  no  longer  immediate,  still  we  may 
to  a  certain  degree  keep  our  eyes  away  from  this  vitiation  and 

come  to  results  about  it.  ,         ,  , 

Immediate  thought  itself  is  inactive  and  resultless :  we  can 
conclude  nothing  from  it  till  its  elements  are  distmguished 
and  till   its  object  is  developed,  and   then  it  is  no  longei 
immediate.    Immediate   thought  does  not  tmply  being,  but 
is  being-feeing  bare,  unchar.'wjterized,  not  knowing  itself  as 
being-  that  is,  if  there  is  immediate  thought,  something  exists, 
but  what  it  is  that  exists,  is  what  we  have  no  means  of  knowing. 
Immediate  thought  is  that  impression,  or  those  impressions  (m 
Hume's  language),   which   is  all  that  in  his  view   there  is 
certainty  of  the  existence  of:  it  is  mere  confusion  to  say   we 
have  certainty,'  because  there  is  no  certain  'we'  in  reference 
to  such  thought,  any  more  than  there  is  a  certain  object.     His 
error  is  in  looking  upon  it  as  a  sort  of  thought  without  subject 
and  object,  instead  of  with  subject  and  object  as  yet  undis- 
tinguished.     The    best    way    in    which,    in    our    developed 
intelligence,  we  can  realize  to  ourselves  immediate  thought, 
is  by  abstracting  mentally  from  our  thought,  so  far  ««  we  are 
able,  the  attention  and  notice  of  which  it  is  full,  and  which  all 

belongs  to  reflection.  ,,      j,  ,■        t 

Immediate  thought  may  be  described  as  the  feeling  of 

being,  in  contradistinction  to  the  realizing  (or  presenting  to 


I] 


REFLECTIONAL,  THOUGHT  AND  ACTION. 


149 


ourselves)  ourselves  or  anything  else,  as  being  or  existing.  In 
immediate  thought  we  cannot  be  said  to  feel  ourselves  as  being, 
any  more  than  we  think  of  anything  definite  as  the  object  of 
our  thought :  either  of  these  would  require  attention  or  notice, 
which  belongs  to  reflection.  But  the  state  of  immediate 
thought  or  feeling  (for  it  matters  not  which  we  call  it),  is 
a  state  of  being,  and  it  is  what,  as  our  thought  distinctifies 
itself  into  reflection,  is  the  germ  of  our  notion  of  being,  when 
we  come  to  present  being  to  ourselves  as  a  notion.  Thinking, 
and  being  the  object  or  possible  object  of  thought,  are  our  two 
suggestives  of  being,  and  both  grow  from  this. 

I  do  not  think  that  the  Cartesian  notion  of  thought  or 
knowledge  proceeding  from  primary  to  developed  consciousness, 
in  such  a  way  that  what  we  need  to  do  is  to  pierce  back  from 
the  developed  to  the  primary,  is  so  good  a  notion  of  it  as  the 
notion  of  immediate  and  reflectional  thought  and  feeling.  And,  in 
this  latter  view,  the  *  Cogito,  ergo  sum '  is  ambiguous,  with  truth, 
indeed,  in  both  the  views  of  it ;  but  truth  of  different  degrees 
of  importance.  .  '  Think '  may  mean  '  think  as  we  all  do  in  our 
developed  intelligence,  use  our  minds ' — and,  whatever  may  be 
the  exact  nature  of  the  implication  or  inference,  it  may  probably 
be  said  with  reason  that  we  could  not  do  this  without  being,  or 
having  existence.  Or  '  think '  may  refer  to  immediate  thought ; 
and  if  it  does,  the  whole  assertion  of  Descartes  is  equivalent  to 
the  saying,  'To  the  extent  to  which  I  am  able  to  realize  to 
myself  immediate  thought,  I  am  realizing  to  myself— coming 
more  and  more  to  understand  what  I  mean  when  I  speak  of 
it, — being  also,  both  my  own  being,  and  the  being  of  what  I 
think  of,  though  all  involved  and  confused  and  (the  latter 
especially)  entirely  indefinite.' 

Immediate  (or  reflex)  action  as  generally  understood  is  a 
sort  of  reaction  in  the  way  of  a  supposed  natural  sequence,  but, 
as  I  use  it  here,  it  will  involve  something  of  voluntary  action 
or  movement.  There  is  no  need  for  its  being  thus  confined, 
except  to  make  its  meaning  a  little  more  definite,  the  reactions 
in  nature  being  so  infinite. 

The  wide  region  of  reflectional  intelligence  is  a  region 
intermediate  between,— if  we  can  conceive  such — an  infinite 


150  IMMEDIATE,  AS  DISTINGUISHED   FROM  [CHAP. 

creature  or  universe  on  the  one  side,  conscious,  but  actionless 
and  without  change  or  desire  for  it,  and  neither  self-conscious 
nor  distinguishingly  perceptive,  and,   on    the    other    side,   a 
universe  full  of  movement  of  regular  actions,  interactions,  and 
reactions.     In  order  to  present  to  ourselves  the  reflectional  or 
the  developed  human  intelligence,  we  must  begin  with  imme- 
diateness,  either  of  thought  or  of  action.     If  of  action :  let  us 
imagine  the  interaction  between  the  light  or  air  and  the  leaf 
of  a  plant  causing  the  movement  of  the  latter  or  the  opemng 
of  its  pores,  and  let  us  follow  upward  interaction  of  this  kind, 
if  we  may  still  call  it  so,  to  the  long  and  complicated  process 
which  takes  place  when  an  apple  strikes  the  eye  of  a  man, 
leading  him  to  put  out  his  hand  and  take  it  and  eat  it.     We 
have  no  means  of  knowing  within  the  plant,  further  than  we 
can  trace  the  movements :  perhaps  there  is  nothing  but  the 
movements ;  and  then  the  action  is  reflex  or  immediate.    What 
passes  within  the  man  is  the  complicated  process  of  reflectional 
intelligence:   but  there  is   not  much  more  that  we  can  say 
about  it  except  so  to  name  it,  when  we  proceed  in  this  way  of 
investigation  from  immediate  action. 

If  we  begin  with  immediateness  of  thought,  we  can  only 
realize  it,  as  I  have  said,  in  a  difficult  and  imperfect  manner, 
by  abstracting  attention  and  notice.    Our  process  is  then  pretty 
much  the  ordinary  one  of  psychi)logists,  which  they  describe  as 
the  gaining  of  ideas  by  successive  sensation  and  association. 
It  is  what  may  better,  in  fact,  be  described  as  the  coming  more 
fully  to  ourselves  in  the  universe,  the  becoming  wider  awake  in 
it,  the  distinctifying  object  after  object  in  it,  at  the  same  time 
that  we  more  fully  feel  ourselves.     In  all  this  process,  thought 
is  passing  from  immediateness  to  reflection,  and  as  it  passes, 
we  lose,  as  well  as  gain :   belief,  conviction,  certainty,  is  the 
persistence,  to  such  extent  as  it  does  persist,  of  that  indistinc- 
tion  between  ourselves  and  the  object  of  our  thought,  which 
belongs  to  immediate  thought ;  and  our  thought,  as  it  becomes 
less  immediate  and  more  reflectional,  loses  some  of  its  force  of 
certainty;   we  become  divided  in  ourselves  and  divided  from 
the   universe.     Not  but   that   our   gain   is   far    greater  than 
our  loss,  thought,  as  barely  immediate,  can  hardly  be  called 


I] 


REFLECTIONAL,  THOUGHT  AND  ACTION. 


151 


thought,  and  we,  till  more  or  less  self-conscious,  are  hardly 

ourselves. 

As  in  this  line  of  reflection  we  proceed  from  immediateness 
of  thought,  so  we  proceed  towards  immediateness  of  action. 
The  reflection  which  causes  delay  and  hesitancy  gives  place 
to  trains  of  thought  so  rapid  as  to  be  imperceptible,  and  the 
impulse  from  without  is  followed  by  action  from  within  so 
surely  and  immediately,  that  it  is  indistinguishable  from  action 
simply  mechanical  or  instinctive. 


J 

I 


J 


CHAPTER  II. 

DEVELOPMENT   OF   KNOWLEDGE   FROM   IMMEDIATENESS. 

INTUITION   AND   EXPERIENCE. 

It  is  a  little  doubtful  whether   I  have   spoken  correctly 
in  using  the  word  '  thought '  of  that  which  is  immediate.     The^,^ 
more  correct  phrase  is  4mmediateness '  simply,  for  even  in^ 
thought  there  is  implied  distinguishingness  or  reflection.     How- 
ever it  is  convenient  to  speak  of  immediate  *  thought'  always 
with  this  qualification. 

Immediate  knowledge  is  immediate  thought  with  something 
of  the  character  of  reflection  attaching  to  it,  but  not  very  much 
By  knowledge  (which  is  one  kind  of  thought),  as  distinguished 
from  thought  which  is  not  knowledge,  I  mean  thought  which 
has   some   guarantee   or  warrant   (beyond  anything  which  is 
contained  in  the  simple  thought  itself),  showing  that  it  is  not 
caprice  or  chimera.     The  word  knowledge  is  under  any  curcum- 
stances  a  bold  word  to  use.     It  expresses  a  particular  kind  ot 
value  which  we  attribute  to  certain  portions  of  our  thought : 
we  require  to  have  reason  to  go  on,  in  attributing  this  value  to 
some  kinds  of  thought  rather  than  to  others :   and  we  must 
have  the  notion  of  this  particular  kind  of  value  (independent 
of  the  thought  to  which  we  attribute  it)  in  order  for  there  to 
be  any  meaning  in  the  attribution. 

Immediate  knoivledge  then,  as  different  from  mere  undistin- 
guishing  '  immediateness,'  is  thought  with  a  certain  amount  of 
distinguishingness  or  particular  notice  of  an  object  of  the 
thought,  but  not  so  much  of  this  as  to  amount  to  a  distinct 
judgment  about  it,  which  is  knowledge  of  reflection  full  or 


n.]    DEVELOPMENT   OF   KNOWLEDGE   FROM    IMMEDIATENESS.   153 

developed.     Immediate  knowledge  of  this  kind  is  what  I  have 
called  in  another  place  knowledge  of  acquaintance*:  it  is  called 
by  some  presentation :  perception  is  a  kind  of  it.     The  point  of 
it  consists  in  the  want  of  development  or  distinctness  in  the 
reflection  which  it  involves :  but  there  is  such  reflection,  and 
only  so  far  as  there  is  such  can  the  thought  be  knowledge. 
This  may  illustrate  what  I  mean  by  reflection :  I  mean  '  double- 
ness '  of  thought,  want  of  simplicity  or  uniformity  of  it.     In 
immediate  knowledge  there  must  be  reason  for  the  distinction 
and  notice  of  that  which  is  the  object  of  it.     This  reason  is 
something  independent  of  the  direct  or  simple  thought,  super- 
adds  something   and   makes   it   double:    and   this    reason    is 
necessary   for   the  raising   of  thought   into   knowledge.     The 
reason  may  be  of  various  kinds :   it  may  be  of  remembrance, 
that  the  object  has  been  before  us  previously,  and  we  recognize 
it:   it  may  again  be  of  feeling,  that  some   pleasure  or  pain 
accompanies  the  thought  of  the  object :  the  point  is,  that  there 
must  be  something  superadded  to,  or  aiding,  the  mere  imme- 
diateness or  presentness. 

Perhaps  the  best  way  in  which  we  can  describe  knowledge 
is  that  it  is  an  union  of  indistinction  and  distinction  of  thought, 
the  indistinction  giving  the  reality  or  trueness  of  knowledge, 
the  distinction  its  point  or  particularity.   Knowledge  is  thought, 
with  a  particular  kind  of  value,  which  we  call  trueness,  under- 
stood to  attach  to  the  thought.     This  value,  it  seems  to  me,  is 
the  carrying  on  of  immediateness  into  reflection,  while  reflection 
on  its  side   supplies  another  kind   of  value,  that   namely  of 
distinction  among  objects,  enabling  us  to  know  their  relations 
one  to  another.     Let  us  take  the  illustration  of  slowly  awaking 
from  sleep.     We  have  here  a  sort  of  resemblance  of  immediate 
thought.   All  is  true  in  a  way,  because  error  or  misapprehension 
is  an  intrusion  of  our  liberty  (though  we  very  likely  do  not 
mean  it  for  such)  where  it  has  no  business  to  come :  here  there 
is  no  place  for  it :  but  still,  though  all  is  in  its  way  true,  we 
cannot,  with  meaning,  say  there   is   knowledge   till   there  is 
distinction,  and  by  it  an  object  or  objects  of  thought  set  before 
us  to  be  known.     And  yet  it  is  not  the  distinction  which  gives 

1  Expl.  60,  121. 


154  DEVELOPMENT  OF  KNOWLEDGE  FROM  TMMEDIATENESS.  [CHAP. 

the  character  of  trumess  to  the  thought,  and  in  that  way  marks 
it  as  knowledge,  but  it  is  the  pre-distirwticyml  immediateness 
which  involved  the  trueness,  and  on  which,  for  foundation,  the 
trueness  rests  and  must  always  rest.     The  oneness  of  subject 
and  object,  thinker  and  thought,  in  immediate  thought,  is  the 
germ  of  all  after  knowledge :  it  is  this  which  constitutes  the 
life,  essence,  special  character  of  knowledge,  the  trueness  in  one 
word,  though  it  cannot  be  called  knowledge  till  it  is  developed. 
This  may  be  illustrated  by  reference  to  the  word  '  intuition,' 
which  I  just  now  described  as  very  misleading.     Intuition  is 
true,  or  real  knowledge,  in  its  character  of  immediateness,  so 
far  Is  immediateness  can  give  knowledge,  but  not  necessarily 
true,  or  real  knowledge,  in  its  character  of  distinction.     We 
have  no  proper  right  to  say,  we  know  this  or  that  intuitively, 
because  '  this,'  and  '  that,'  imply  a  distinction  of  objects  which 
does  not  belong  to  intuition  as  immediate.     We  have  an  in- 
tuitional knowledge  of  the  external  world :  but  our  distinction 
of  objects  from  ourselves  and  among  themselves,  and  our  con- 
sequent view  of  their  relations  to  us  and  among  each  other, 
which  makes  up  our  notion  of  the  external  world  in  its  characters 
and  variety— all  this  is  not  at  all  intuition,  though  it  need  not 
be  inconsistent  with  it.     Intuitive  knowledge,  as  immediate,  is 
a  state  of  undistinguished  and  common  being  uniting  us  with 
what  we  know :  as  soon  as  we  separate  it  off  from  us,  intuition 
passes  into  reflection :  though  we  have  not  quitted  truth,  we 
have   introduced   another  and   a   doubtful   element,   and   the 
particular  distinction  we  make  must  have  its  reason,  and  must 
have  an  account  given  of  it.     The  intuition,  or  immediate  and 
necessarily  true  knowledge  (of  a  tree  e.g.)  if  we  like  to  use  such 
language,  is  something  which  we  may  psychologically  try,  in 
various  ways,  to  analyse,  but  of  which  we  can  give  no  proper 
account,  because  we  have  no  notions  or  words  in  which  to  give 
account  of  it.     We,  and  the  tree,  and  the  world  of  which  we 
are  both  a  part,  are  all  undistinguished  in  the  intuition  as 
immediate,  and  in  this  indistinction  is  the  fundamental  truth 
of  the  existence  of  the  tree :  but  then  we  add  to  the  immediate- 
ness a  certain  amount  of  reflection,  and  arrive  at  perception  or 
immediate  knowledge :  which,  to  be  knowledge,  must  have  in 


II.]    DEVELOPMENT   OF  KNOWLEDGE   FROM   IMMEDIATENESS.    155 

it  distinction  (something  more  than  intuition  or  immediateness), 
and  this  distinction  is  only  caprice  and  folly,  except  so  far  as 
we  can  give  reason,  or  (which  is  the  same  thing)  so  far  as  we 
consider  objective  reason  to  exist,  for  the  making  it.     We  say, 
we  perceive  what  then  we  call  a  tree,  but  we  do  not  say,  we 
perceive  as  one  object,  nameable  like  the  tree— what  may  be 
exactly  in  a  similar  manner  before  our  eyes — a  bit  perhaps  of 
the  tree  and  a  bit  of  the  sky  and  a  bit  of  green  grass  which 
may  be  all  contiguous.     This  is  because  we  have  a  reason,  or 
we  consider  that  there  exists  a  reason  in  nature,  for  our  dis- 
tinguishing the  tree,  which  does  not  exist  for  our  distinguishing 
and  naming  the  other  mass  or  combination  of  visualness  to 
which  I  have  referred.     The  consideration  of  all  the  variety  of 
reason  of  this  kind  is  the  work  of  reflection.     Reflection  builds 
itself  upon  intuition  or  immediateness,  studying  it,  and  bringing 
to  bear,  so  far  as  it  can,  the  whole  of  it.     For  instance  in 
distinguishing  the  tree,  an  object  of  sense,  it  has  to  bring  to 
bear  a  portion  of  intuition,  different  from  that  of  sense,  which  I 
shall  soon  speak  of.     Still,  as  human  activity  and  the  result  of 
human  will,  it   has  in  itself  liability  to  error,  and  not,  like 
intuition,  the  necessity  of  truth  :   hence,  no  distinct  thing  or 
object  can  be  properly  said  to  be  known  intuitively. 

All  knowledge,  as  true,  has  in  it  the  element  of  immediate- 
ness or  intuition,  and  all  knowledge,  as  definite  or  distinguishing, 
has  in  it  the  element  of  reflection.  Hence  there  is  intuition 
corresponding  to  all  developed  knowledge  :  our  state  in  reference 
to  the  external  world,  as  an  object  or  objects  of  sense,  is  one 
kind  of  immediateness,  but  one  only :  our  state  in  respect  to 
any  kind  of  existence  or  possible  existence,  is  in  the  fii-st 
instance  immediate  thought  and  immediate  knowledge  (if  it 
comes  to  be  knowledge  at  all).  What  reflection  does  is,  as  it 
were,  to  digest  the  immediateness,  to  distinguish  different 
portions  of  it  and  bring  them  into  relation  with  each  other. 
These  two  processes,  the  distinction  and  the  mutual  reference, 
are  combined  and  are  in  fact  one,  or  in  other  words  they 
mutually  suggest  each  other.  We  call  the  intuition  of  a  tree 
an  intuition  of  sense,  or  a  part  of  sensation,  but  it  is  only 
knowledge  (as   we   have   seen)   so   far   as   it   is   made   so    by 


r 


156   DEVELOPMENT  OF  KNOWLEDGE  FROM  IMMEDIATENESS.   [CHAP. 

reflectional  distinction.  What  this  reflection  does  is  to  bring 
to  bear  on  the  sensal  intuition  other  intuitions  which  we  should 
describe  as  of  a  higher  nature,  as  of  unity  &c.,  and  only  then  is 
there  intuitive  knowledge,  or  knowledge  of  any  kind. 

What  I  want  to  make  understood  is,  that  the  immediate- 
ness,  which  is  the  basis  of  all  knowledge,  has  all  the  elements 
of  truth  in  it  which  the  most  developed  knowledge  has,  whether 
these  elements  are  intuitions  of  sense  (what  we  commonly  call 
sensation  or  experience)  or  whether,  besides  these,  they  are 
intuitions  such  as  those  which  I  just  referred  to  as  being  of  a 
higher  nature,  intuitions  of  mind,  intuitions  of  reason.  Re- 
flection, or  the  activity  of  the  mind,  has  to  work,  not  upon  a 
mass  of  intuition  simply  sensal,  but  upon  a  mass  of  intuition  of 
every  kind  and  degree,  intellectual  and  rational  as  well  as 
sensal.  If  there  is  not  intuition  of  these  latter  kinds  to  begin 
with,  there  is  no  trueness  in  any  after  knowledge,  which  we 
describe  as  rational  or  intellectual,  in  distinction  from  sensal. 
For  the  activity  of  our  mind,  qua  bare  activity,  is  the  source  of 
error :  tnieness  is  something  given  to  it,  and  trueness,  rightly 
handled  by  it,  is  what  we  call  knowledge.  Trueness,  of  what- 
ever kind,  is  all  given  to  us  in  the  first  instance  in  immediate- 
ness  or  intuition,  and  when  we  stir  and  quicken  this  inactive 
immediateness  by  reflection,  we  add,  and  can  add,  no  fresh 
trueness,  to  whatever  amount  our  knowledge  grows. 

So  far  then  as  there  are  two  elements  of  our  knowledge, 
they  are  not  thought  and  experience  (that  is,  what  is  commonly 
meant  by  these  words),  but  immediateness  and  reflection. 
Only,  it  is  to  be  observed,  these  constitute  no  antithesis — they 
stand  in  no  contrast  the  one  to  the  other.  They  are  not,  e.g. 
anything  that  can  be  called  the  matter  and  form  of  knowledge, 
for  reflection  gives  no  form,  no  new  being  or  reality  to 
immediateness:  all  the  form  and  reality  is  already  in  the 
immediateness:  they  are  more  like  the  body  and  soul  of 
knowledge,  except  that  immediateness  has  all  the  life  of 
knowledge,  though  as  yet  but  embryotic  and  undeveloped:  all 
it  wants  is  quickening :  till  reflection  does  this,  it  is  knowledge 
in  the  germ,  but  not  proper  knowledge. 


11.] 


INTUITION   AND  EXPERIENCE. 


157 


Intuition  and  Experience, 

In  English  controversy,  the  antithesis  which  I  have  just 
spoken  of  between  'thought'  and  'experience'  is  generally 
described  as  between  'intuition'  and  'experience,'  or  else 
between  'ideas'  and  'sense,'  the  word  'intuition'  being  not 
commonly  used  in  English  philosophy  in  application  to  the 
intuitions  of  sense,  which  we  more  commonly  call  '  sensation,* 
and  which  are  here  described  as  '  sense,'  or  '  experience.'  The 
word  '  intuition '  in  this  antithesis,  in  its  English  form,  is  used 
more  or  less  to  express  a  combination  of  two  things,  which  are 
looked  upon  as  one,  viz.  what  I  have  called  the  higher  intuitions, 
and  the  reflectional  activity  of  the  mind.  It  appears  to  me, 
that  this  analysis  or  antithesis  of  knowledge  is  virtually  ad- 
mitted by  almost  all  English  philosophers.  That  is  to  say, 
those  who  most  strongly  urge  that  the  former  element,  the 
English  *  intuition,'  is  not  real  or  important,  nevertheless  make 
their  supposition  of  the  other  element,  'experience'  (from  which 
they  derive  all  knowledge)  much  as  their  opponents  would, 
leaving  in  this  way,  if  we  may  so  speak,  the  place  for  the 
former  element  vacant,  though  they  will  not  allow  it  to  be 
occupied.  Or,  to  put  the  thing  in  another  way,  they  keep  it  (I 
do  not  mean  with  any  intentional  bad  faith)  as  a  convenient 
ground  to  which  their  term  '  experience '  retires  now  and  then, 
and  we  never  can  precisely  be  sure  whether  '  experience '  means 
mental  experience,  succession  of  states  of  the  mind,  or  physical 
experience  (so  to  call  it),  successive  communications,  on  our 
part,  with  physical  nature. 

Kant's  'experience'  is  liable  to  difficulties  of  a  different  kind, 
which  I  have  already  touched  on  in  speaking  of  Dr  WhewelP, 
who  here  is  at  one  with  him.  Kant  does  not  seem  to  me  to 
give  a  very  clear  account  of  what  he  means  by  'experience/ 
But  on  the  whole,  when  he  speaks  of '  das  mannigfaltige,'  the 
manifold  of  experience  and  intuition,  which  the  conceptive 
understanding  binds  up  into  unity,  it  appears  to  me  that  what 
he  ought  to  say  is  'das  verworrene,'  'das  unbestimmte'  (the 
confused,  the  undistinguished)  which  then  is  digested,  not  by  a 

1  Ex'pl.  c.  m. 


158 


INTUITION   AND  EXPERIENCE. 


[chap. 


II.] 


INTUITION   AND  EXPERIENCE. 


159 


'•. 


I, 


special  faculty  adding  to  it  ideas  or  applying  to  it  categories, 
but  by  attention  and  notice  intensifying  and  bringing  but  what 
is  in  the  immediateness  or  intuition  already.  The  picture  was 
not,  as  Kant's  term  would  seem  to  imply,  a  crowd,  but  a  mist. 
As  we  apply  our  attention  to  it,  the  picture  and  its  parts  come 
out,  whether  because  our  eyes  are  getting  clearer,  or  that  a  film 
is  coming  off  from  it,  we  cannot  tell,  and  need  not:  for  the 
picture  and  our  eyes  are  always  opposite  the  one  to  the  other, 
and  when  we  have  succeeded  in  distinguishing  them  the  one 
from  the  other  by  reflection,  we  yet  cannot  present  to  ourselves 
the  one  without  the  other,  or  discover  any  principle  upon  which 
we  can  distribute  their  interaction  between  them.  The  mani- 
fold has  parts,  too  many  of  them  for  us,  whereas  parts  are  just 
what  immediateness  has  not. 

This  is  in  substance  the  same  criticism  which  I  made  on 
Dr  Whewell,  where  he  seems  to  speak  of  sensation  as  one  degree 
or  kind  of  knowledge,  upon  which  ideas  are  superadded,  making 
a  higher  kind.  He  uses  the  general  term  *  ideas'  for  all 
the  various  things  which,  being  superadded  to  experience, 
make  it  into  intuition,  understanding,  reason,  or  give  to 
knowledge  these  different  characters.  I  mention  this  to  illus- 
trate what  I  said,  that  English  philosophers  commonly  put  on 
the  side  of  the  antithesis  opposite  to  experience,  both  the 
reflectional  activity  of  the  mind  and  the  higher  intuitions.  On 
the  one  side  is  the  imperfect  knowledge  of  sensation,  on  the 
other  side  is  the  mind  with  its  activity,  furnished  with  ideas, 
modifying  the  sensation  or  experience  to  meet  the  ideas, 
and  again  the  ideas  to  fit  the  experience.  I  do  not  see  why 
we  should  not  call  the  ideas  a  part  of  our  experience,  as 
well  as  (on  the  other  hand)  our  experience  a  part  of  our 
thought  and  knowledge.  I  see  no  principle  upon  which  the 
separation  can  be  made.  Between  the  activity  of  our  mind, 
indeed,  on  the  one  side,  and  the  ideas  (if  we  are  to  call  them  so) 
and  the  experience  on  the  other  side,  I  see  a  very  great  difference 
and  am  most  ready  to  make  a  separation.  So  far  as  the  activity 
is  absent,  both  ideas  and  experience  are  in  the  state  which  I 
have  called  *  immediateness.'  But  then  the  activity  of  mind  is 
wanted  as  much  for  the  so-called  experience  as  for  the  so- 


called  ideas,  to  make  anything  of  either  of  them.  When  I  see 
a  tree,  I  seem  to  myself  to  see  it  as  one  quite  as  much  as  to  see 
it  as  green,  and  if  I  did  not  see  it  as  one  I  probably  should  not 
see  it  as  green :  the  green  is  called  sensation,  the  oneness  idea : 
and  of  course  there  is  this  difference,  that  we  can  discover  a 
particular  relation  between  the  greenness  and  particular  nerves 
of  our  body,  to  which  we  find  no  analogy  in  the  case  of  the 
oneness :  but  this  is  not  sensive  knowledge,  it  is  anatomy  (not 
perhaps  difficult).  Again,  the  distinctifications  of  our  confused 
immediateness  go  in  a  succession  which  we  call  learning :  some 
are  speedy,  some  take  long:  some  have  evident,  some  more 
complicated,  reason  for  them.  The  point  is,  that  we  do  not 
distinguish  the  greenness  of  the  tree,  any  more  than  its  oneness, 
without  attention  and  notice,  and  that  except  we  do  thus 
distinguish,  we  have  no  knowledge  of  it,  even  of  the  meanest 
kind.  There  is  not  even  a  '  mannigf altige,'  a  manifoldness  of 
qualities  in  the  tree,  scarcely  even  a  chaos.  On  the  other  hand, 
unless  the  tree,  when  it  first  presented  itself  to  my  eyes, 
presented  itself  obscurely  as  one  in  the  same  way  as  it  presented 
itself  obscurely  as  green,  I  should  have  no  right,  in  my  after 
reflection,  to  call  it  one :  the  reason  for  which  I  come  to  call  it 
one  was  present  in  it  at  the  first,  just  as  the  greenness  was, 
whether  I  saw  {i.e.  distinguished)  it  as  green,  or  as  one,  or 
however  I  saw  it. 


Ir 


!* 


<    , 


CHAPTER  III. 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   SELF- CONSCIOUSNESS   FROM 

IMMEDIATENESS. 

The  vague,  involved,  half-consciousness  of  immediateness 
awakes  to  full  consciousness  or  self-consciousness  on  the  one 
side,  exactly  in  the  same  manner  as  the  remaining  portion  of 
the  immediateness  awakes  to  perception  on  the  other  side. 

It  is  possible,  that  in  true  or  complete  immediateness  the 
subjective  might  not  be  more  prominent  or  more  brought  out 
than  the  other  portion.  But  in  immediateness,  so  far  as  we 
can  at  all  succeed  in  picturing  it,  or  as  it  is  any  use  for  us  to 
try  to  do  so,  the  above  is  not  the  case  :  the  subjective  element 
is  the  more  prominent,  or,  if  we  like  to  put  it  so,  we  are  looking 
at  immediateness  from  the  side  of  thought ^  and  it  is  as  im- 
mediateness indeed,  but  still  as  something  which  can  be  called 
immediate  thought,  that  it  interests  us.  The  subjective  portion 
of  it  therefore  is  not  in  so  embryonic  a  state  as  the  objective, 
because  I,  the  thinker,  am  in  the  subjective  portion  of  it,  and 
know  myself  to  be  so,  though  I  do  not,  as  it  were,  recognize 
myself,  and  distinguish  myself,  more  than  rudimentarily.  There 
is  much  to  say  another  time  about  immediate  or  non-reflectional 
consciousness  (so  far  as  it  is  to  be  called  consciousness)  which  is 
connected  with  our  active  nature  \ 

However,  there  is  no  distinct  consciousness  on  the  one  side 
till  there  is  perception  on  the  other,  and  the  same  vice  versa. 
Consciousness  is  then  self-consciousness:  we  distinguish  our- 
selves markedly  from  what  we  know  as  not  ourselves :  we  know 

^  See  below  ch.  v.,  on  Sensibility  and  Activity, 


in.] 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS,  ETC.  161 


ourselves  as  knowing,  and  we  know  the  object  of  knowledge  as 
known  by  us. 

There  is  as  much  reason  to  speak  of  this  self-consciousness 
as  a  separate  faculty  (if  any  person  likes  that  language),  as 
there  is  to  speak  of  perception,  and  similarly  of— what  we  come 
to  afterwards— memory,  imagination  &c.,  as  separate  faculties : 
and  no  more  reason.  They  are  all  intentions,  applications, 
manners  of  exertion,  of  the  intelligence:  it  matters  little 
whether  they  are  called  faculties  or  not. 

The  controversy  between  Reid  and  Hamilton,  as  to  whether 
consciousness  is  a  faculty,  is  I  suppose  in  substance  this  question: 
whether  the  term  consciousness  is  most  properly  applied  to 
consciousness,  as  I  just  now  spoke  of  it,  in  the  pre-reflectional 
or  immediate  stage,  or  to  this  later  self-consciousness.     If  we 
call  what  I  have  termed  'immediate  thought'  by  the  name 
of  *  consciousness  *  so  as  to  make  consciousness,  as  Sir  William 
Hamilton  does,  the  germ  of  all  knowledge,  all  that  I  would 
say  is,  that  there  is  no  meaning  in  trying  to  analyse  it  in  this 
state :  we  are  involved  in  the  middle  of  it,  we  cannot  get  away 
from  it  or  set  it  out  from  us  so  as  to  be  able  to  look  at  it.     As 
soon  as  we  have  succeeded  in  any  way  in  doing  this,  we  shall 
find  that  we  have  altered  its  character:   it  is  no  longer  the 
original  primary  consciousness,  but  is  self-consciousness,  per- 
ception: these  are  what  we  are  analysing,  not  it:  and  it  is  a 
mere  logical  fallacy  to  bring  notions  which  we  think  must  have 
necessary  application  to  it,  to  bear  upon  them,  or  vice  versL 
It  is  no  better  than  despotic  dogmatism  under  the  form  of 
argument  to  say  that  the  '  deliverances '  of  consciousness  must 
be  obeyed,  and  then  to  take  to  one's  self  the  power  of  pro- 
claiming them,  and  to  look  upon  any  difference  from   one's 
own  view  as  a   contradiction   of  consciousness.     Intuition  or 
immediateness,  '  consciousness,'  if  Sir  William  Hamilton  likes 
to  call  it  so,  is  the  germ  or  basis  of  all  truth,  but  does  not  give 
us  knowledge  of  particular  truths,  or  separated  units  of  truth 
which  we  can  express  in  propositions,  unless  it  is  mixed  with 
reflection,  and  then  there  enters  in  the  controvertible  element. 
The  fact  is,  that  in  separating  or  formulating  to  ourselves  the 
notion  which  we  then  describe  as  true,  and  in  expressing  it  in 

11 


M. 


w 


' 


I 


162  DEVELOPMENT  OF  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS  [CHAP. 

words,  we  have  been  going  beyond  the  intuition,  ^^^  though 
we  may  very  possibly  be  right,  we  are  not  immediately  and 
necessarily  right :  we  must  give  reason  for  what  we  say,  more 
than  calling  it  a  deliverance  of  consciousness. 

I  will  refer  back  for  a  moment  to  what  I  said  formerly  bs 
to  Sir  William  Hamilton's  view  of  the  external  world,  just  to 
bind  together  what  I  said  then  with  what  I  am  saying  now. 
The  existence  of  the  external  world,  he  tells  us,  is  shown  to  us  by 
consciousness,  and  those  whom  he  calls  Cosmothetic  Idealists,  e.g. 
Berkeley,  deny  the  testimony  of  consciousness.    It  appears  to  me 
that  this  kind  of  language  should  be  banished  from  philosophy. 
Consciousness,   if   by   it   we   mean   immediate   thought,   is   a 
witness,  or  rather  the  witness,  within  us,  whose  testimony  it  is 
impossible  to  deny,  but  whose  testimony,  in  order  to  be  brought 
out  to  the  world,  has  to  be  brought  out  through  a  formula 
or  notion,  and  this  again  through  words,  that  is,  through  other 
notions:  and  there  is  nothing  in  the  world  which  anybody  who 
wishes  to  attain  to  truth  ought  to  be  more  ready  to  deny,  and 
ought  to  be  more  suspicious  of,  than  what  is  brought  out,  m 
philosophy,  as  such  a  testimony.    Consciousness,  like  the  spirits 
of  our  day,  has  got  to  speak  through  a  medmm,  viz.  the  re- 
flectional  or  intellectual  disposition  and  character  of  the  speaker, 
so  that  the  report  of  what  it  says,  supposing  the  best  faith,  is 
vet  very  little  to  be  trusted.     In  the  present  case,  I  have  no 
more  doubt  than  Sir  William  Hamilton  that  the  existence  of 
the  external  world  is  a  fact  or  testimony  of  our  consciousness  or 
immediate,  necessary,  thought;  and  it  is  probable  that  if  he 
(mtod  uUnaml  could  return  to  earth  to  philosophize  agam,  and 
Berkeley  too,  the  view  at  the  bottom  of  our  three  minds  would 
be  the  same :  in  fact  I  do  not  see  how  it  could  be  otherwise, 
that  is,  in  such  a  cardinal  point  as  the  present.     But  then  we 
each  begin  to  reflect :  and  this  'existence  of  the  external  world 
(what  words  we  use  for  that  which  we  are  talking  of  in  this 
stage  of  it  is  of  course  unimportant,  for  none  can  be  fit  ones) 
gets  put  into  notions  first,  and  then  into  words.    By  what  right 
does  any  one  of  us  say  to  the  others  that  the  notion  into  which 

I  Expl.  p.  94  foU. 


III.] 


FROM  IMMEDIATENESS. 


163 


he  puts  our  original  oneness  or  matter  of  agreement  is  a  truer 
representation  of  it  than  those  into  which  the  others  put  it  ? 
His   assertion  is  worth  no  more  than  theirs:    and  what  we 
want  is  not  assertion,  but  reason.     The  fact  is,  the  immediate 
thought,   in   which,  we    may   probably  suppose,   we    are    all 
fundamentally  at    one,   cannot    be    looked    at   in   itself,  but 
must    be   studied   by   reflection,    whether   that   reflection   be 
exercised  upon  the   immediate   thought  itself,  which   is  the 
proper  philosophy,   or  whether  other    developments  of   that 
thought  be  followed,  or  their  method  studied,  which  is  'science.' 
My  look  around  me  at  this  moment  involves  in  itself  the  notion 
of  the  existence  of  the  external  worid  (so  far  as  the  notion  is 
true),  if  I  could  but  get  the  notion  disentangled  or  make  it  out 
m  the  mist.     But  if  I  say,  '  The  notion  is  there,  you  believe  it, 
for  it  is  a  matter  of  my  consciousness,'  it  may  with  reason  be 
said  again,  '  I  cannot  believe  it  till  you  describe  it,  and  if  you 
begin  to  describe  it,  you  will  see  very  soon  you  are  speaking  of 
things   very  diflferent  fi-om   consciousness  and   quite   open  to 
controversy :   or  if  you  do  not,  those  whom  you   think  your 
supporters  will  see  it  for  you.' 

So  much  for  consciousness,  so  far  as  we  use  the  term  to 
express  immediate  thought  or  the  state  which  I  have  called 
'  immediateness,'  the  state  i.e.  of  mutual  presentation  of  subject 
to  object  and  object  to  subject,  which  has  to  be  conceived  by  us 
(so  far  as  it  is  conceived)  by  reflection,  and  which  therefore  we 
cannot  fully  conceive.      We   mmt    station   ourselves   on   the 
subjective  side,  which,  in  the  after  development,  is  that  which 
we  find  to  be  ours ;  and  we  being  on  this  side,  we  may  call  the 
state  (as   bare   and   pure   as  we   can  conceive  it)  immediate 
thoiight,  without  serious  error.     But  in  this  immediate  state,  in 
which  there  is  the  fact  of  knowledge,  previous  to  the  disengage- 
ment of  its  factors,— knowingness  and  knownness,  thinkingness 
and  thoughtness,  united  in  one  fact,— in  this  state  the  think- 
ingness is  not  well  described  as  '  consciousness,'  both  the  notion 
and  etymology  of  which  imply  a  sort  of  doubleness  different 
from  the  above  singleness  or  simplicity. 

Consciousness  is  a  looking  back  upon,  or  a  looking  into, 
ourselves,  and  the  term  inevitably  leads  to  a  sort  of  ambiguity 

11—2 


t 


f 


K 


164  DEVELOPMENT  OF   SELF -CONSCIOUSNESS  [CHAP. 

Of  thought.  The  one  self,  a.  it  were,  is  doing  -^atever  it  m^y 
be  willL  thinking,  imagining,  the  other  looks  at  it  doing 
thL  Since  both  selves  are  of  course  in  reality  one,  we  say, 
Ir^iTk  Ind  we  know  we  think,  .e  will  and  we  know  we^^^^^^^ 
and  so  on.    But  it  is  important  to  draw  the  ^istmction  b^^^^^^ 

the   simple   doing   the   thing  in    q-^^-^V^^^^^^tttlnd 
ima^ning,  and  the  doing  it  with  that  attention  given  to  it  and 
^notit  taken  of  it,  which  makes  our  ^tate  what^  m^^^^^^^^^^ 
called  with  meaning  a  state  of  consciousness     The  d  ff^ence 
between  the  two  states  is  not  properly  that  there  ,s  m    he 
second  anything  of  a  new  kind  added  to  the  first:   it  is  the 
difference  which  I  have  just  now  noticed  between  immediate 
ness  and  reflection.     In  the  second  state,  what  wa^  latent  m  the 
tot  is  brought  out  and  is  distinct:  consciousness  has  meamng. 
If  it  is  selfLnsciousness,  distinction  of  oneself  from  something 
else :  and  there  is  douUeness.  for  besides  oneself  there  -omeO. mg 
else  before  us,  and  this  latter  we  say  we  perceive.     Thisj    he 
state  to  which  belongs  that  kind  of  thought  of  which  a  port  on 
s  or  may  be,  proper  kn^ledge.     Immediateness  expresses   he 
;jc    of  knowledge'  but  we  are  now  taking  our  station  on  the 
subiective   side   to   analyse   and   develope   this   fact,  and   our 
Sit;  tUnUng.  the  right  or  true  poi^ion  of  which  is  kno^g^^ 
begins  when  we,  (first)  set  before  ourselves  (second)  an  object  ot 
thought  to  employ  our  thoughts  about  .  ,   ,  ,     ,,  ^  ^^^ 

We  must  be  cautious  here  against  bemg  misled  by  the  word 
'  obiect  ^  and  perhaps  our  best  security  will  be  to   remember 
that  reflection  is  only  an  outgrowth  from  immediateness,  adding 
nothing   to   it  but  attention,  notice,  distinction.     Mr  Ferrier 
says\  that  the  essence  or  proper  notion  of  knowledge  is  what 
he   describes   as  subject  +  object,    the   knowing   ourselves   a^ 
knowing,  and  the  knowing  the  object  as  being  known  by  us. 
It  is  to  be  observed  that  when  this  is  described  as  knowledge, 
there  ought  to  be  meant  knowledge  beginning  to  be  reflective 
and  distinct.     With  reflection  begins  a  reduplication  ol  the  ego 
or  subject,  making  it  a  co-object  of  thought  with  that  which, 
in  relation  to  it,  may  be  called  the  primary  or  principal  or, 
perhaps,  direct  object. 

»  See  Expl.  c.  iv. 


iil] 


FROM   IMMEDIATENESS. 


165 


Mr  Ferrier  draws  many  important  consequences  from  his 
view,  and  I  do  not  wish  to  dispute  it.  But  I  think  that  what 
seems  to  me  the  truth  is  given  with  sufficient  accuracy,  if  we 
say  that  with  the  commencement  of  reflection,  thought  divides 
itself  into  two  lines,  self-consciousness  on  the  one  side,  and  on 
the  other— what  might  be  called  perception,  or  if  we  like, 
intuitive  knowledge  (as  I  explained  this),  growing  on  into 
other  knowledge,  or  even,  if  we  use  the  term  with  care,  sen- 
sation:  it  is  in  a  word  all  our  extro-verted  thought  [extro 
implying  no  relation  of  space),  our  thought  which  is  not  turned 
selfwards. 

The  great  difficulty  in  the  study  of  thought  is  this  im- 
portunate  self-consciousness,   this   self-reduplication,   and   the 
constant  and  unavoidable  shifting  of  our  mental  position,  be- 
tween our  observing  and  observed  selves.    But  it  is  no  discredit 
to  philosophy  that  it  has  this  difficulty;  for  in  regard  of  our 
view  of  what  we  call  nature  it  is  worse  than  a  difficulty,  it  is  a 
confusion.     In  reflection,  we  try  to  set  before  ourselves  our 
immediate  thought,  which  is,  as  I  said,  the  basis,  and  contains 
the  reality  of  all  knowledge :  but  part  of  it  will  not  leave  us 
but  sticks  to  us,  while  part  we  succeed  in  setting  before  us  or 
objectifying,  and   hence  the  difficulty.     Language  is  like  the 
dove  from  the  ark,  unable  to  find  rest  for  the  sole  of  its  foot, 
when  it  endeavours  to  plant  itself  on  some  firm  notion  between 
us,  our  senses,  and   the   external   world.     When    we   talk   of 
'seeing   a   thing,'  meaning   thereby  to  indicate  a  process   in 
which  we,  on  the  one  side,  with  a  very  vague  notion  of  our- 
selves,  are   considered   to   stand   in   a    certain    relation   with 
something  of  which  we  have  an  equally  vague  notion  on  the 
other,  while  nevertheless  we  know   most   perfectly  what  we 
mean  and  mean  most  sensibly,— all  this  falls  into  utter  con- 
fusion, as  soon  as   we   begin   to  give   our  attention   to   the 
intermediation  of  our  sense.     What  sees?  what  do  we  see? 
what  is  seeing?     We  can  understand  the  term  'intuitions  of 
sense,'  *  perception  of  things,'  so  long  as  we  continue  to  express 
it  in  the  language  of  the  market-place:   but  as  soon  as  we 
begin  to  study  the  intermediation,  where  are  we  to  find  the 
intuition  or  perception  ?     What  is  '  we '  ?  Is  the  body  with  its 


H 


166 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 


[chap. 


senses  '  we/  or  is  it  not  ?  Is  the  intuition  '  our '  observation  of 
the  state  of  the  brain,  or  is  it  the  correspondence  of  the  eyes  or 
brair.,  in  whatever  way,  with  the  state  of  the  thing,  or  what 

is  it? 

I  have,  however,  a  little  anticipated  here  in  bringing  the 
difficulty  arising  from  the  intermediation  of  our  bodily  self,  or 
sensive  organization,  between  that  which  on  the  one  side  we  call 
our  thought,  and  that  on  the  other,  which  we  call  the  external 
world,  in  illustration  of  the  general  difficulty  arising  from  our 
adding  the  consideration  how  we  know  anything,  to  our  actual 
knowledge  of  it,  so  far  as  we  may  call  the  latter,  without  the 
former,  real  knowledge.  As  soon  as  we  begin  to  reflect,  we  can 
no  longer  absorb  ourselves  in  nature,  or  be  sure  we  have  hold 
of  reality,  for  we  only  know  nature  through  an  intellective 
machine  or  organism,  and  as  soon  as  we  begin  to  puzzle 
ourselves  about  the  working  of  this,  the  first  simplicity  of  our 
view  of  nature  is  lost.  And  in  the  same  way  our  simple 
thought  of  ourselves — our  self-accompaniment,  self-companion- 
ship (if  we  may  call  it  so),  as  distinguished  from  our  self- 
observation  and  self-study — ^is  lost  also.  Instead  of  being 
either  at  home  or  in  the  free  air,  we  are  in  the  noisy  and 
bewildering  manufactory  of  thoughts  and  notions. 

But  I  will  return  from  this  digression  to  examine  so  far 
as  I  can,  the  nature  of  the  reflective  consciousness  or  self- 
consciousness. 

Reflection  is  a  kind  of  attempt  to  translate  immediateness, 
and  as  we  do  so,  it  may  be  either  our  own  part  or  the  part 
which  is  not  our  own  (that  is,  what  appears  the  one  or  the 
other),  which  may  strike  us  most  forcibly  and  be  first  attended 
to.     The  former  case  is  that  which  I  will  first  examine. 

Is  there  anything  hut  ourselves?  is  what  is  likely  in  this 
case  to  suggest  itself.  All  is  undoubtedly  our  thought :  in 
calling  the  immediateness  immediate  thought,  as  I  did,  I 
implied  that  it  is  we  who  are  in  some  way  doing  something, 
or  suffering  something:  the  one  thing  therefore  that  we  are 
certain  of  is  ourselves  and  the  state  in  which  we  are, — are  we 
certain  of  anything  else  ? 

Here  self-consciousness  seems  to  absorb  into  itself  the  whole 


III.] 


FROM  IMMEDIATENESS. 


167 


Of  immediateness :  and  its  disposition  to  do  so  is  in  a  manner 
the  beginning  of  reflective  philosophy,  i.e.  reflection  turned  in 
the  direction  of  the  study  of  the  nature  of  knowledge,  and  the 
fundamental  notion  of  things.     If  we  use  the  word  '  experience ' 
a  term,  from  the  opposite  point  of  view,  thoroughly  ambiguous 
and  misleading,  exactly  in  the  manner  in  which  I  have  described 
intuition    to  be,  we  had  best  begin  the  use  of  it  here,  and  say 
that  from  the  first  beginning  of  intelligence  to  be  itself,  (i.e.  to 
be  a  combination  of  immediateness  or  presence,  and  notice, 
the  two  together  constituting  knowledge,)  it  goes  through  a 
succession  of  experiences:   or,  if  we  prefer  the  language   its 
hemg  intelligence  consists  in  its  going  through  such  a  succession 
of  experiences:  and  the  first  of  such  experiences  is  the  su^^es- 
tion  to  It  of  the  thought  that,  after  all,  when  we  get  to  the 
bottom  of  thmgs,  everything  is  thought  on  its  part,  and  that 
there  is  nothmg  more  than  thought.     When  we  talk  of  '  ex- 
penence '  in  any  way  which  can  be  properly  called  philosophical 
i.e.  in  any  way  which  does  not  baldly  assume,  as  a  matter  of 
common  sense  or  consciousness,  the  existence  of  the  external 
world,  m  the  way  in  which  the  mass  of  men  are  supposed  to 
realize  it,  as  the  basis  of  reality,-when,  I  say,  we  talk  of 
experience    for  any  philosophical  purpose  going  below  this  all 
we  can  mean  by  it  is  a  succession  of  mental  states,  mental 
experiences,  in  a  sense  analogous  to  the  religious  application  of 
the  word.     The  word  '  experience '  here  carries  with  it  a  notion 
of  value  or  importance  in  the  mental  state,  which  I  have  no 
wish  at  all  that  it  should  lose,  if  only  we  remember  that  in  this 
region  we  have  no  private  revelation  of  an  external  worid  to 
lean  on,  when  we  are  charged  with  meaning  no  more  than  mere 
imagination  and  illusion. 

^  However,  I  think  there  is  significance  in  using  the  term 
mental  or  intellectual  experiences '  for  our  thoughts,  in  the  way 
whxch  I  will  endeavour  to  explain.  The  feeling  strongly,  that 
the  one  great  fact  which  we  are  aware  of  is  that  '  we  think  '  and 
the  subordinating  everything  else  to  this,  in  such  a  mlnner 
a«  to  convert  all  that  seems  to  be  around  us,  from  objects 
independently  existing  (as  ordinary  practical  thought  is  sup- 
posed to  consider  them)  into  objects  simply  of  thought-this  is 


4 


1 


168  DEVELOPMENT  OF  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS  [CHAP. 

what  is  generally  called  by  the  name  of  '  idealism/  It  is  often 
charged  with  reducing  thought  to  mere  imagination,  any  portion 
of  which,  for  all  that  we  can  know,  may  be  illusion ;  because  it 
there  is  nothing  besides  objects  of  thought,  there  is  nothmg 
independent  of  thought,  to  test  thought  by ;  and  to  say  of 
thought  that  it  is  one  thing  or  another,  true  or  false,  when 
there  is  nothing  else  anywhere  but  itself,  is  absurd:  it  is 
everything,  which  is  as  good  as  being  nothing:  it  has  no 
predicates.  And  yet  there  is  such  a  thing  as  thinking  in- 
correctly or  falsely.  If  there  is  no  such  thing  as  illusion,  there 
is  no  such  thing  as  knowledge.     What  then  do  imagination, 

error,  knowledge  mean  ?  •       -n 

I  think  the  best  way  to  have  right  notions  about  this  will 
be  to  rescue  the  word  '  experience '  from  the  application  of  it 
which  is  made  by  many,  and  to  apply  it  from  the  first  in  the 
manner  in  which  I  have  just  done.     When  we  say, '  we  know 
things  by  experience,'  what  many  philosophers  mean  is,  that  we 
know  them  as  a  part  of  the  physical  order  of  things  in  which 
we  live,  and  that  our  senses  have  some  way  or  other,  directly  or 
indirectly,  made  us  aware  of  them.     Now  when,  from  this  view, 
we  endeavour  to  pass  to  the  manner  of  our  conception  of  this 
whole  physical  state  of  things,  and  to  the  nature  of  our  sensal 
perceptiveness,  we  get  into  difficulties.     Mr  Mill  speaks  of  our 
conception  of  the  external  world,  or  of  nature  as  a  whole,  being 
acquired  by  experience,  in  the  same  manner  as  he  might  speak 
of  any  portion  of  our  knowledge  of  the  physical  universe,  e.g. 
that  cows  have  horns,  or  that  arsenic  is  poisonous.     Now  I  am 
at  one  with  him  in  readiness  to  use  the  word  '  experience '  in 
both  these  applications :   only  I  would  take,  as  the  type  or 
propriety  of  its  meaning,  its  meaning  in  application  to  the 
earlier  and  primaiy  knowledge,  which  is  the   more  full  and 
general ;  whereas  it  appears  to  me,  that  the  whole  point  of  its 
significance  with  him  comes  from  its  application  to  the  later 
or  simply  sensal  knowledge.     But  in  reality,  if  we  take  the 
meaning  of  such  words  as  '  acquired '  and  '  experience '  from  the 
manner  of  our  gaining  our  later  knowledge,  and  then,  with  our 
minds  full  of  that,  apply  the  words  to  our  earlier  or  primary 
knowledge  (or  thought),  all  that  results  is  that   this  earlier 


in.] 


FROM   IMMEDIATENESS. 


169 


thought  does  resolve  itself  into  little  other  than  imagination, 
and  I  do  not  see  what  principle  we  have  to  go  on  in  dis- 
tinguishing it  from  that.  It  is  the  positivist  or  experientialist 
idealists  (if  I  may  combine  such  apparently  contradictory  terms) 
who  seem  to  me  to  be  the  real  visionaries.  In  our  later  or 
physical  knowledge,  we  judge  of  any  particular  portion  that  it 
is  knowledge,  and  we  call  the  mental  change  'acquisition  of 
knowledge,'  rather  than  simply  *  change  of  thought '  (which  in 
itself  might  be  towards  error),  in  virtue  of  its  coalescing, 
according  to  certain  principles  or  laws,  with  what  we  already 
know.  When  we  are  speaking  therefore  of  a  stage  before  the 
chain  of  this  latter  experience  has  begun,  and  before  we  have 
any  means  of  distinguishing  an  acquisition  from  an  illusion, 
and  when  yet  we  have  no  other  notion  of  experience  to  apply 
than  that  which  we  get  at  this  later  stage, — then  it  does  seem 
to  me  that  all  at  the  beginning  is  imagination,  and  nothing 
more.  Our  so-called  knowledge  is  a  vast  imagination  which 
we  take  care  to  make  self-consistent :  and  fresh  imagination 
which  possesses  this  consistency  we  call  experience.  *  Insanimus  * 
at  the  beginning,  but  we  take  care  that  all  the  progress  of  our 
dream  shall  be  ^cum  ratione! 

As  a  matter  of  fact  then,  when  the  mutual  presence  of 
subject  and  object  begins  to  be  verified  by  dawning  reflection 
on  the  side  of  self-consciousness,  the  fundamental  experience  of 
the  awakening  intelligence,  which  stands  nearest  to  immediate- 
ness,  is  the  feeling  that  all  is  our  thought,  that  whatever, 
beyond  oneself,  we  may  or  can  ever  come  to  perceive,  owes  its 
existence,  for  us,  to  our  perceiving  it;  that  it  is  our  own 
creation,  which  can  never  stand  independently  or  on  equal 
terms  against  us. 

It  seems  to  me  that,  whatever  may  be  the  extent  or  im- 
portance of  our  discoveries  in  the  line  of  physical  experience, 
we  can  never  get  away  from  this  initial  self-consciousness.  I 
shall  endeavour  to  explain  how  in  the  progress  of  our  thought, 
we  come  to  consider  that  in  reality  we  depend  on  the  universe 
rather  than  on  ourselves,  and  that  this  is  the  right  way  of 
thinking.  But  whenever  this  our  dependence  is  urged  upon 
us  as  an  entire  dependence,  and  the  completeness  of  our  view 


I     ^A 


i! 


170 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS  [CHAP. 


III.] 


FROM   IMMEDIATENESS. 


171 


of  the  physical  universe  is  put  in  such  a  way  as  to  include 
ourselveSy  mind  and  body,  within  it, — then,  it  seems  to  me,  there 
rises  up  within  us  in  opposition  this  first  self-consciousness,  this 
first  reflectional  thought  or  experience,  with  such  a  voice  as 
this :  *  After  all,  that  things  exist,  means,  for  me,  that  I  think 
they  do :  my  thought  is,  for  me,  prior  to  their  existence :  it  is 
now  apparently  proved,  from  the  manner  of  their  existence, 
that  my  thought  is  only  a  part  of  that :  but  how  can  this  be  ? 
how  can  my  thought  at  once  embrace  their  existence  and  be 
embraced  by  it  ?  how  can  the  universe  come  to  generate  that 
out  of  which  it  was  itself  generated  ?  /  think,  is  to  me  the 
first  of  realities :  that  the  universe  exists  is  to  me  a  secondary 
and  dependent  one :  how  can  we  come  round  to  make  this 
reality  the  source  of  the  former,  to  make  the  primary  depend 
upon  the  dependent  ?  * 

Supposing  it  to  be  the  case,  as  Mr  Mill  says,  that  physical 
research  could  demonstrate  that  consciousness  or  sensation  was 
a  function  of  matter ;  while  at  the  same  time  it  is  the  case,  as 
he  in  another  place  says,  that  matter  or  'things'  is  only 
*  possibilities  of  sensation'  on  the  part  of  sensiveness;  where 
are  we  to  find  firm  ground  to  stand  on  ?  In  the  circle,  which 
makes  sensation  a  function  of  matter,  and  matter  a  possibility 
of  sensation,  where  are  we  to  find  either  premiss  or  conclusion, 
principle  or  result?  I  cannot  think,  as  I  have  said  formerly, 
that  any  possible  physical  discovery  can  affect  or  alter  the 
import  of  our  primary  self-consciousness.  And  though  in 
language,  one  has  to  use  metaphysical  and  scholastic-looking 
terms,  the  feeling  seems  to  me  to  be  one  of  the  simplest  and 
most  immediate  which  can  be  present  with  us.  The  sentiment 
is  so  close,  so  intimate,  that  one  can  hardly  put  it  into  words : 
it  is,  that  feeling  (that  which  we  express  by  self-consciousness, 
that  which  suggests  to  us  personality  or  our  own  existence)  is 
something,  in  virtue  of  the  very  feeling  of  it,  heterogeneous  to 
anything  which  we  conceive  as  existing  for  the  feeling,  meeting 
it  firom  what  we  call  'without,'  and  which  we  know,  and  call 
reality  or  things,  owing  to  this  meeting.  However,  words 
are  of  but  little  use  on  this  subject,  and  I  will  not  dwell 
upon  it. 


In  speaking  of  the  genesis  of  definite  or  reflectional  know- 
ledge, I  use  terms  whose  signification  is  taken  from  time, 
without  any,  or  with  but  little,  reference  to  time,  and  it  is  as 
well  perhaps  that  I  should  in  passing  notice  this ;  I  have  done 
the  same  in  reference  to  space.  I  hope  afterwards  to  speak  of 
the  growth  of  knowledge  in  individuals,  which  is  what  we  call 
learning:  at  present  I  have  only  to  do  with  what  might  be 
called  logical  time  or  space,  logical  priority  or  order.  In 
philosophical  speculation,  we  must  speak  of  within  and  without, 
of  before  and  after,  in  reference  not  to  space  and  time,  but  to 
conceptions  which  we  may  consider  space  and  time  as  suggesting 
to  us,  as  arithmetical  notation  suggests  the  more  general  alge- 
braical.   To  space  and  time  themselves  I  hope  to  come  speedily. 


Wi 


IV.] 


SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS   AND  PERCEPTION,  ETC. 


173 


CHAPTEE  IV. 


SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS   AND  PERCEPTION  IN  CONJUNCTION. 

I  HAVE  already  spoken  of  these  in  conjunction,  for  it  is  not 
possible  to  avoid  it,  nor  do  I  wish  to  do  so,  but  I  will  now 
speak  of  them  fairly  in  their  companionship,  and  contrast  the 
one  with  the  other,  and  of  the  next  step  in  the  experiences  of 
our  intelligence. 

Self-consciousness  is  the  becoming,  more  or  less  distinctly, 
aware  of  ourselves.  But  can  we  fairly  say,  that  it  is  the  be- 
coming aware  of  our  own  existence  ?  How  do  we  know  that 
our  supposed  self-consciousness  is  not  a  dream  ?  that  there  is 
anything  consistent  about  it,  any  ground  for  it  ? 

The  truth  of '  cogito,  ergo  sum,'  so  far  as  it  has  truth,  is  not, 
as  I  have  said,  argumentative,  but  consists  in  its  being  an 
expression  of  the  union  of  thought  and  being  in  the  primary 
stage  of  what  I  have  called  '  immediateness.' 

Perhaps  what  I  say  may  be  better  understood  by  a  reference, 
for  a  moment,  to  Hume.  He  says  that  nothing  really  exists,  or 
can  be  considered  reasonably  by  a  philosopher  to  exist,  except 
what  he  calls  'impressions':  and  in  saying  this,  he  perhaps 
appeared  to  himself,  and  in  any  case  has  appeared  to  a  great 
many,  to  be  saying  something  very  sceptical.  But  observe 
upon  what  the  notion  of  this  being  sceptical  rests.  Leaving 
out  of  account,  as  in  fact  we  ought,  the  metaphor  in  the  word, 
Hume  is  only  liable  to  the  charge  of  scepticism  in  the  same 
way  as  Mr  Mill  (as  I  have  mentioned)  might  be  liable  to  a 
charge  of  visionariness.     To  what  extent  either  charge  is  valid, 


depends  upon  the  extent  to  which  either  philosopher  makes 
his  standard  of  trueness  or  reality  to  be  what  some  philosophers, 
as  I  have  said,  mean  by  experience,  viz.  the  possibility  of 
hanging  on  and  the  call  to  hang  on,  consistently  and  satisfactorily, 
to  what  we  knew  before,  an  alleged  fresh  fact,  in  a  world  of 
regular  co-existences  and  sequences.  No  one  can  doubt  but 
that  this,  or  something  like  this,  is  the  way  in  which,  in 
developed  intelligence,  we  do  judge  as  to  a  great  deal  of  alleged 
fact.  If,  then,  it  is  the  only  way  to  judge  of  truth,  and  if  we 
are  to  carry  it  back  to  our  speculations  on  fundamental  truth, 
then  the  impressions  have  no  claim  to  truth,  and  there  is 
scepticism. 

But  supposing  I  say,  The  impressions  have  no  claim  to 
truth  or  substance  as  you  choose  to  characterize  truth,  and 
therefore  you  speak  depreciatingly  of  them :  but  they  are 
anyhow  themselves  facts,  true  and  valuable  so  far  as  that :  let 
us  see  what  they  mean.  To  me,  the  whole  Berkeleian  and 
Humian  controversy  is  a  matter  of  wonder,  for,  had  it  not  been 
for  the  wrong  psychology,  I  cannot  imagine  what  people  could 
have  expected  to  find  at  the  basis  of  thought,  other  than  what 
they  slightingly  called  impressions,  or  perhaps  ideas.  It  is 
said  all  that  we  are  ultimately  certaia  of  is,  not  minds  on  the 
one  side,  not  things  on  the  other,  but  only  ideas  or  impressions. 
Be  it  so :  then  those  ideas  or  impressions,  and  their  existence, 
are  one  great  fact  to  begin  with.  As  ideas  or  impressions, 
they  are  not  ideas  of  minds,  i.e.  conceived  by  minds,  nor  ideas 
of  things,  i.e.  expressing  or  representing  something  purporting 
to  be  beyond  themselves.  Here  then  we  have  a  second  great 
fact,  after  the  fact  of  their  existence,  viz.  that  they  grow  or 
develope  themselves  into  conceptions  hy  what,  in  virtue  of  self- 
consciousness,  calls  itself  mind,  of  what  that  mind,  in  virtue  of 
the  conceptions,  calls  things:  and  hence,  we  have  the  whole 
forward  road  of  knowledge  open  before  us.  This  at  least  is 
fact,  and  I  cannot  understand  what  more  complete  and  funda- 
mental fact  we  can  want  or  expect.  So  complete  is  it,  that  all 
after  fact  seems  to  me  but  a  portion  of  it:  our  mind  here 
makes  its  first  experience,  and  the  point  of  the  significance  of 
the  term  *  experience '  afterwards  is  that  it  is  the  succession  of 


l!h'l 


iH 


4 


174 


SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS  AND  PERCEPTION 


[chap. 


IV.] 


IN  CONJUNCTION. 


175 


states  which  the  mind  goes  through,  keeping  to  the  course  thus 
begun. 

I  have  taken  the  above  view  of  Hume's,  as  to  all  that  in  the 
last  resort  exists  being  ideas  or  impressions,  to  illustrate  what 
I  mean  by  *  immediate ness.'  As  I  view  it,  it  seems  to  me 
anything  but  sceptical,  anything  but  paradoxical.  If  we  at  any 
moment  endeavour,  in  the  most  distinct  manner  we  can,  to  set 
before  ourselves  what  we  call  our  mental  state,  we  get,  it  seems 
to  me,  according  to  the  clearness  of  our  thought  at  the  time, 
further  and  further  along  the  way  towards  a  view  which  is  in 
substance  this — not  simple  self-consciousness,  the  consciousness 
of  our  own  existence — but  this  consciousness  in  union  with  the 
state  of  things  in  which  we  are,  the  circumstances  in  which  we 
find  ourselves,  the  objects  we  are  thinking  of:  we  do  not  exist 
by  ourselves,  but  in  union  with  all  this,  as  a  part  of  all  this : 
and  so  it  all  exists  in  union  with  us,  as  a  part  of  us.  In  the 
same  manner,  if  we  are  trying  to  form  a  notion  of  what  we 
mean  by  a  fundamental  conviction  of  the  truth  of  a  thing,  it 
seems  to  me  that  we  endeavour  to  pierce  back,  if  it  may  be 
called  so,  to  a  state  in  which  our  separate  self-consciousness, 
as  distinguished  from  the  thought  of  that  which  we  have  con- 
viction of,  disappears :  a  state  in  which  we  and  it  are  in  a  kind 
of  (not  spatial)  presence  together,  and  this  mutual  presence  is  the 
fact  which  exists.  It  is  impossible  to  use  language  about  this 
without  its  seeming  abstruse,  and  perhaps  visionary  or  mystical, 
but  the  thing  itself  is  simple,  so  far  as  anything  is  to  be  called 
simple.  We  may  illustrate  it  by  what  we  sometimes  feel  in 
observation  of  nature,  when  we  have  been  for  a  moment  lost  in 
our  thought :  the  observation  perhaps  loses  distinguish ingness 
as  the  mind  loses  self-consciousness,  but  all  the  more  there  is 
an  intensity  and  truth  in  it  which,  so  far  as  we  can  carry  it  out 
into  self-consciousness  and  distinguishingness,  is  what  con- 
stitutes the  reality  of  knowledge. 

I  have  used  the  word  '  phenomenalism,'  and  hope  to  use  it 
again,  in  a  particular  sense  which  I  have  carefully  defined. 
The  distinction  made  by  many  philosophers  between  *  phe- 
nomenology' and  'ontology*  is  one  which  I  do  not  admit. 
Nor,  consequently,  do  I  consider  that  there  is  significance  in 


the  terms,  there  being  no  contrast  or  distinction.  Ontology 
has  now  rather  a  bad  name  in  philosophy,  what  is  called 
'phenomenology'  a  good  one:  the  former,  the  older  term, 
seems  to  me  to  have  a  certain  significance  and  application  of 
its  own,  independent  of  the  above  contrast :  in  the  latter,  the 
newer  term,  I  see  no  proper  significance  at  all. 

To  me,  and  I  say  it  without  a  thought  of  paradox— for 
there  only  wants  a  startling  manner  of  statement  to  make  any 
philosophical  truth  seem  paradoxical  to  those  who  are  not  in 
the  habit  of  thinking  philosophically— what  we  call  'appearance' 
seems  to  involve  in  it  both  thought  and  being,  and  Hume's 
'ideas'  or  'impressions,'  my  ' immediateness,'  might  each  be 
called,  if  we  prefer  the  term,  'appearance.'  The  word  'ap- 
pearance '  has  a  double  implication,  involving  something  which 
appears,  and  something  to  which  it  appears.  This  implication 
we  may  conceive  as  in  either  direction  abortive :  there  may  be 
appearance  without  what  we  will  at  present  call  '  substratum  * 
of  it :  this  is  what  we  term  hallucination  or  dream— appearance 
of  nothing :  there  may  be  appearance  without  any  intelligence 
to  which  the  appearance  is— appearance  to  nothing.  To  me  the 
appearance  seems  in  either  case  like  Ely  Cathedral  without  its 
Northern  transept  or  Achelous  without  his  horn— maimed  and 
but  half  itself. 

Complete  appearance  is  impossible  without  ourselves  for  the 
appearance  to  be  to,  in  the  same  way  as  it  is  impossible  without 
something  to  appear.  There  is  abundance  of  partial  separation 
between  intelligence  and  object  mutually  ready  and  expectant : 
but  can  we  entertain  the  notion  for  a  moment  of  a  total 
separation  of  this  kind  ?  And  if  not,  then  the  true  and  first 
reality  is  the  conjunction,  which  I  have  called  appearance. 

We  may  call  with  equal  truth  the  entire  mass  of  appearance 
all  '  thought,'  or  all  '  being.'  And  either  of  these,  in  its  own 
point  of  view,  may  be  made  the  principal. 

Being  is  the  first,  in  regard  that  the  appearance  itself,  the 
idea,  impression,  immediateness,  is  a  fact  or  reality,  in  the 
manner  in  which  I  have  described,  the  fundamental  or  the  first 
fact.  And  as  the  appearance  resolves  itself,  in  thought,  into  the 
intelligence  perceiving  things,  the  intelligence  itself  has  bein^ 


176 


SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS  AND  PERCEPTION 


[chap. 


IV.] 


IN  CONJUNCTION. 


177 


as  much  as  the  things,  or  the  appearance  would  be  nothing- 
would  be  the  one-sided  abortion  of  which  I  have  spoken. 

But  thought  is  the  first  again  in  another  way,  in  regard 
that,  however  we  try  to  keep  the  point  of  view  of  a  philosophical 
speculator  or  observer  ah  extra  of  the  fact  of  appearance,  we 
cannot  really  keep  this  point  of  view :  we  belong  ourselves  to 
the  fact  of  appearance  and  are  a  part  of  it,  and  when  we  come 
to  speak  of  thought,  we  have  to  reinforce  the  one  side  of  it 
by  our  own  speculativeness,  and  take  our  place  within  it. 

This  last  is  what  I  have  tried  to  express,  in  what  I  have 
said  hitherto,  by  speaking  of  '  immediate  thought '  rather  than 
immediateness :  the  Humian  words  'idea'  and  'impression/ 
which  both  have  primary  references  to  the  intelligence,  carry 
the  same.  We  cannot  of  course  arrive,  in  conception,  at  that 
fusion  of  intelligence  and  thing,  of  subject  and  object,  from 
which,  it  seems  to  me,  truth  of  thought  germinates.  We  are 
on  the  side  of  thought,  and  must  keep  there,  and  must  there- 
fore still  describe  the  utmost  that  we  can  arrive  at  as  thought 

or  idea. 

I  do  not  think  that  the  above  identification  of  appearance 
with  being  and  truth  can  be  considered  as  idle,  and  notional — 
what  if  true,  can  have  no  result, — when  we  think  of  the 
endless  philosophical  discussion  which  there  has  been  and  is  as 
to  what — say  in  our  sensive  intuitions  or  perceptions — is  called 
'subjective,*  coming  from  the  mind,  on  the  one  side,  and  what 
is  called  'objective,'  coming  from  things  on  the  other.  We 
have  no  notion  of  things  at  all,  except  what  the  mind  gives  us. 
On  the  other  hand,  if  we  prefer  a  different  mode  of  expression, 
and  take  this  givenness  for  granted,  we  may  say  things  present 
themselves  to  us  as  they  are.  In  either  case  1  see  no  possible 
way  in  which  we  can  make  a  division  between  something  as 
belonging  to  the  mind  and  something  as  belonging  to  the 
thing :  I  do  not  see  what  region  of  thought  the  principle  which 
should  guide  such  a  division  is  to  come  from. 

In  my  view,  a  thing  is  what  it  looks,  and  looks  what  it  is : 
we  see  it  as  it  is,  and  it  is  as  we  see  it.  I  am  here  using  the 
sense  of  sight  as  the  type  not  only  of  all  that  we  commonly 
call  sense,  but  of  all  intuition  or  what  I  have  described  as 


immediate  knowledge.      The  looks  of  a  thing,  if  we  mi^ht 
extend  for  a  moment  the  use  of  the  word,  are  the  various 
manners  of  its  presentation   to   each   possible   faculty  or  in- 
strument of  knowledge,  and  these  'looks'  (if  we  use  a  difibrent 
langx^age)  are  simply  the  qualities  of  the  thing  a^  a  substance. 
The  thmg  IS  no  more  than  the  combination  of  its  looks  the 
substance  no  more  than  the  combination  of  its  qualities'    In 
this  momentarily  extended  meaning  of  the  term  'looks,'  what 
1  mean  is  that  a  thing  looks  to  the  sight  in  this  way,  smells  in 
that  way  tastes  m  a  third,  measures  so  much  across  or  round 
stands  off  so  far  from  the  body,  constitutes  or  composes,  say 
such  and  such  a  machine  or  system,  serving  such  a  purpose--' 
which  last  IS  quite  as  much  a  '  look '  or  presentation  of  it  to  the 
higher  mtuition  or  perception,  a^  its  form  or  colour  is  to  the 
lower-and  it  is  the  combination  of  all  these  'looks'  together 
which  makes  up  the  thing  for  us :  it  is  the  combination  of  the 
whole  possible  amount  of  such  for  every  possible  variety  of 
inte  ligence,  so  far  a^  such  a  conception  has  meaning,  which 
would  constitute  the  thing  in  itself,  the  absolute  thin^     The 
thing  aa   It   is   to   us  then   is   not   a   possibly   fallacious   re- 
presentation,  not  a  dress  of  something  underneath,  but  simply 
a  partial  view.     Whether  a  complete  view  exists,  or  the  thinj 
has  a  proper  self  or  absoluteness,  except  in  face  of  the  Divine 
Intelligence,  is  a  matter  which  we  may  speculate  upon,  with  o,^ 
without  result.     Knowledge  is  of  the  complete  view,  and  is  all 
absolute,  not  relative :  we  have  amount  of  knowledge  according 
to  the  amount  of  completeness  of  our  view ;  mistake,  of  which 
1   hope  soon  to  speak,  is  want  of  knowledge— but  of  this 
presently. 

I  said  that  the  thing  was  the  combination  of  its  looks  not 
the  sum  or  aggregate,  and  in  respect  of  this  we  have  to  notice 
that  the  looks  of  a  thing  are  in  degrees,  and  of  very  different 
values:  and  that  the  difference  between  a  combination  and  an 
aggregate  is  that,  a^  to  the  former,  we  understand  there  is 
reason  for  it,  meaning  in  it,  not  as  to  the  latter.  The  looks  are 
of  greater  or  less  value  according  as  they  tell  us  more  or  less  of 
this  reason  or  meaning.  In  fact,  this  reason  or  meaning  mi^ht 
be  described,  if  we  like  to  use  the  language,  a^  the  look  of 

12 


— ^,_ — ^-,., 


178  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS   AND  PERCEPTION  [CHAP. 

the  thing  iteelf-it  is  what  I  have  formerly  called*  its  'thing- 
hood/  Its  character  is  this,  that  it  is  of  necessity  the  same  for 
every  possible  intelligence,  answering  the  description  I  gave 
just  now  of  the  thing  in  itself,  so  far  as  this  can  be  supposed  to 

exist.  ,  - 

I  have  introduced  the  words  *  meaning '  and  *  reason    here 
for  the  purpose  of  drawing  attention  to  the  manner  in  which 
they  illustrate  what  I  am  now  endeavouring  to  show,  viz.  that 
the  proper  reality  is  the  relation  of  subject  and  object,  or  that 
which  I  have  called  '  appearance.'     We  '  mean '  whatever  we  do 
mean ;   a  thirty  again  or  a  notion  '  means '  this  or  that :    we 
possess  '  reason ' ;  there  is  '  reason '  for  this  or  that  thing.     The 
usage  of  language  is  exceedingly  various  about  all  this,  but  I 
think  it  all  goes  to  make  us  think  that  the  sort  of  naturally 
suggested  view,  which  language  may  be  supposed  to  express,  is 
that  things  before  us  in  the  universe  are  neither  '  phaenomena 
of  noumena,'  which  is  pretty  much  the  same  as  deceptions,  nor 
things  which  have  their  being  independent  of  any  intelligence 
conceiving  them.     Nothing  but  their  *  looking '  in  the  way  they 
do,  suggests  to  as  their  'being'  at  all.     The  notion  of  their 
having  a  being  beyond  what  they  look  is  purely  gratuitous : 
their  looking  as  they  do,  is  sufficient  reality,  and  in  fax;t  all 
possible  reality:   the  notion  of  their  having  possibly  another 
reality  seems  to  me  to  belong  to  that  false  realism,  to  which 
the  language   of  Hume  which   I   have  quoted  is  necessarily 

sceptical.  i.    n         - 

If  we  apply  what  I  have  just  been  saying  to  the  Cartesian 
*Cogito,  ergo  sum,'  it  will  appear  more  strongly  than  before 
that  such  truth  as  it  has  must  have  reference  to  that  primary 
indistinction  of  knowing  and  being  which  exists  in  immediate- 
ness.  If  we  explain  it,  Cogito,  ergo  mm  comcius,  we  have  not 
advanced  a  step :  if  we  interpret  it,  Gogito,  ergo  vivo,  we  have 
advanced  too  far.  And  I  cannot  understand  what  the  absolute 
notion  of  being,  here  apparently  involved  in  '  sum,'  is.  Being  is 
being  something :  being  something  is  looking  in  some  way,  or, 
in  grander  language,  possessing  some  character  presentable  to 

'  Expl.  106,  128  Ac. 


nr.] 


IN  CONJUNCTION. 


179 


4 


m telhgence.     It  may  be  more  than  this,  for  it  may  be  in- 
telhgence  .tself  as  well :  but  this  is  what  is  contained  in  the 
cogito,  or  what  the  'cogito'  means.     In  order  to  get  a  step 
beyond  the  'cogito/  we  want  the  addition  of  some  property 
some  character,  something  for  us  to  be :   and  it  is  quitTim- 
ix^sible  for  us  to  proceed  from  the  bare  '  cogito '  to  this     I  do 
not  understand  the  seeming  predication  of  this  absolute  'being' 
to  carry  any  meaning.     Now,  as  I  have  mentioned,  the  primary 
fact  .8  not  'cogito,'  but  is  what  I  have  called  immediateness  of 
which,  so  soon  as  we  begin  to  reflect  or  wake,  we  notice  'cogito' 
first:   but   we   do   not  'think'   absolutely,  we   find   ourselves 
thinking  some  how   we  have  an  object,  embryotic  perhaps,  but 
still  enough  to  make  our  thought  not  absolute,  but  determinate. 
Hence^  the  first  definite  thought  after  immediateness,  is  not 
I  am      sum,  absolutely,  but  'I  am  some  how,'  'I  exist,  find 
myself  existing,  m  a  state  of  things':  'I  think  in  a  particular 
way,  this  or  that  seems  to  me  or  is  thought  by  me '    The 
immediateness  in  which  we  wake  to  consciousness  is  a  portion 
a  part,  of  the  state  of  things.     We  think  in  a  determinate  way' 
of  somethmg  determinate,  and  therefore,  if  we  must  conclude 
something,   we   may   say,   we    are   something  in   a   universe 
Being  IS  something  which  we  share  with  the  univeree  in  which 
we  find  ourselves  (or  in  which  we  are  one  with  it),  and  our 
determinateness  is  something  differencing  us  from  the  rest  of  it 
1  do  not  thmk  'being'  would  mean  anything  to  us,  unless 
something  else  'was'  besides  we.  and  unless  we  'were  some- 
thing' differencing  us  from  what  that  'something  else'  was 

This  primary  imagination,  the  true  '  Cogito,  ergo  sum '  of 
reflection,  which  follows  on  the  'cogito'  of  immediateness  (aa 
near,  that  is,  as  we  can  approach  to  the  expression  of  im- 
niediateness),  where  we  mean  by  'sum,'  I  have  a  certain  being 
of  my  own  in  a  certain  state  of  things,  I  call  a  primary 
experience '  of  the  mind,  on  account  of  the  supposition  of  the 
existence  of  this  state  of  things,  into  which  we,  by  reflection 
wake.  In  developed  intelligence,  'true'  is  equivalent  to  'not 
false  :  when  we  assert  anything,  we  are  said  to  mean  it  more 
or  less  forcibly,  according  as  we  have  more  or  less  in  our  mind 
other  alternative  things  which  might  be  and  which  are  not : 

12—2 


' 

^ 


I'> 


180  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS   AND   PERCEPTION  [CHAP. 

we  are  denying  a  counter-supposition,  and  excluding  from  our 
notion  the  ground,  from  which  it  stands  relieved  or  distinguished. 
In  regard  of  primary  notions,  the  supposition  of  truth  or  non- 
truth   of  this  kind   is  impossible.     When  we   first  begin   to 
consider  ourselves  to  he,  and  the  universe  to  he  about  us,  is 
this  what  some  people  understand  by  an  intuition,  i.e.  a  per- 
suasion carrying  necessary  conviction,  or  is  it  a  mere  imagination, 
or  is  it  an  experience  ?     It  is  ea*h  or  any  of  these,  for  here 
these  terms  have  no  distinctive  significance.     The  word  'con- 
viction' has  no  meaning  when  there  is  no  supposition  of  a 
possible  alternative  presenting  itself:  the  word  imagination  in 
the  signification  of  'illusion'  has  no  meaning,  except  on  the 
supposition  of  our  knowing  reality  in  some  way  otherwise  than 
by  the  way  of  which  we  are  speaking:  the  word  'experience 
has  no  meaning  except  on  the  supposition  of  a  continuous  state 
of  things,  and  of  previous  knowledge  on  which  to  hang  the  new. 
Still  of  the  three  words,  the  word  '  experience '  seems  to  me  to 
approach  the  nearest  to  appropriateness.     It  seems  to  indicate 
to  us  this,  which  we  ought  to  consider,  and  which  I  will  express 
thus  that  as  thmigU  is  identified  with  the  subject,  so  knowledge 
or  truth  {i.e.  true  or  right  thought,  as  a  species  of  the  genus 
thought)  is  identified  with  the  object.     When  we  speak  ot  a 
non-ego,  of  something  besides  ourselves,  the  lowest  foundation, 
the  most  intimate  meaning,  of  the  notion,  is  not  the  existence 
of  anything  at  all  like  us  by  the  side  of  us-that  may  be  or 
not— but  is  the  notion  of  something  controlling  or  determining 
our  thought.    If  we  were  the  only  existence,  there  would  be 
no  truth  or  knowledge  for  us-there  could  not  be  even  deter- 
mination or  characterization  of  mrselves  without  an  external 
reference.     I  call  then  our  feeling  ourselves  what  we  are,  m  an 
universe  in  which  we  are,  by  the  name  of  a  first  experience,  to 
express  that  from  the  first  we  feel  our  thought  determined  by 
(that  is,  to  have  a  particular  character  in  accordance  with) 
something  without  us  and  so  far  independent  of  us :  we  wake 
into   a  state  of  things   which   therefore    we  understand   as 
anterior,  as  to  some  of  its  characters,  to  our  self-recognition. 
And  yet  we  ourselves  are  anterior  to  it.    Immediateness  is 
the  primal  fact  to  us,  which  our  self-consciousness  and  per- 


IV.] 


IN  CONJUNCTION. 


181 


i 


ceptiveness  have  got,  in  the  language  which  I  have  used,  to 
digest. 

If  we   use   the   word   '  perceptiveness '  loosely   to   express 
notice,  or  apparent  notice,  of  any  facts  which  we  may  suppose 
to  be  in  the  universe,  whether  abstruse  or  simply  sensal,  it  may 
now  be  said  that  self-consciousness  and  perceptiveness  go  hand 
in  hand  from  our  first  experience,  the  one  setting  forth  and 
bringing  out  the  other.     We  might  roughly  say  that  there  are 
two  great  and  separate  regions  of  thought  into  each  of  which 
both  enter,  or  in  other  words  (which  I  abstained  from  using 
before  in  order  to  avoid  the  notion  of  any  reference  to  time) 
two  stages  of  our  thought  in  this  respect :   there  is  our  full 
consciousness   of  ourselves   as    thinking,   and   there   is   corre- 
spondingly  with   this,   perceptiveness   of   what  is    frequently 
called  'the  relations  in  the  universe  which  are  the  object  of 
thought/  which  I  hope  to  speak  of  more  fully  soon :  and  there 
is  what  I  will  for  the  present  call  our  semi-consciousness  of  our 
corporeal  and  phenomenal  selves  and  our  sensive  organization, 
and    correspondingly    with    this    there    is    perceptiveness    of 
those  things  which  are  commonly  understood  as  objects  of 
sense. 

It  will  be  observed  that  I  called  this  a  rough  division,  and 
I  am  perfectly  aware  that  in  making  it  I  am  laying  myself 
open  to  the  charge  of  encouraging  the  division  between  ideas 
and  sense,  thought  and  experience,  which  I  have  condemned. 
That  division,  made  so  extensively  as  it  has  been,  would  not 
have  been  made  without  much  to  suggest  it.     I  make  myself 
the  above  rough,  and   in  fact  incorrect,  division,  to   express 
more  shortly  and  summarily  what  I  have  in  another  place^ 
expressed  by  means  of  a  scale,  and  because  it  is  convenient 
to  make  the  distinction,  which  really  represents  a  gradation, 
between  full  and  semi-consciousness,  and  correspondingly  be- 
tween thought  and  sensal  perception :  but  there  is  no  line  of 
demarcation  between  the  two,  and  every  perception,  speaking 
generally,  has  elements  in  it  from  the  top  to  the  bottom  of  the 
scale. 

^  Expl.  ch.  VI. 


I 


1 


182 


SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS   AND   PERCEPTION 


[chap. 


IV.] 


IN   CONJUNCTION. 


183 


Our  advancing  knowledge  is  a  growing  and  endlessly  rami- 
fying conception  of  ourselves  in  correspondence  with  the  universe, 
and  of  the  universe  in  correspondence  with  ourselves.  This  is 
knowledge  in  virtue  of  its  uniting  trueness  with  definiteness :  it 
is  true  so  far  as  it  is  a  real  development  of  the  original  trueness 
or  fundamental  experiences :  it  has  definiteness  given  to  it,  and 
is  thus  made  into  knowledge  by  reflection,  which  reflection  or 
distinctification  must  not  be  such  as  to  alter  the  trueness. 

We  conceive  ourselves  on  the  one  side  as  thinking,  and 
perceiving  through  the  medium  of  an  intellective  and  sensive 
organization,  which  we  call  mind  and  body  in  accordance  with 
the  rough  division  which  I  made  just  now,  but  which  is  more 
fitly  represented  as  I  have  done  in  another  place  by  a  scale  of 
mental  and  corporeal  process :  I  have  there  called  it  all  sen- 
sation.    We  cannot  make  a  division,  i.e.  one  division,  between 
mind  and  body.     Mind  and  body  together  form  one  intellective 
organization,  of  which  what  we  call  the  lower  portion  (to  what 
extent  upwards  we   cannot   tell)  involves  in  it    an   element 
heterogeneous  from  intellection.     I  call  it  so,  because  intel- 
lecticm,  being  what  we  conceive  a  state  or  action   of  ours,  is 
something  of  which  we  can  be  fully  conscious,  though  con- 
sciousness is  not  its  being :  whereas  of  our  body  we  have  only 
what  I  have  called  semi-consciousness,  by  which  I  mean  that 
we  have  the  knowledge  of  it  jointly  by  consciousness  and  by 
perception,  and  that,  while  consciousness  is  our  instrument  for 
knowing  ourselves,  what  we  know  by  perception  is,  so  far,  not 
ourselves.     In  respect  of  our  arm,  e.g.  we  may  be  conscious  of 
it,  if  we  like  to  use  that  language,  in  virtue  of  a  pain  in  it,  at 
the  same  time  that  we  see  or  perceive  it  with  our  eyes. 

I  do  not  use  the  word  '  soul,'  or  any  similar,  because  I  am 
not  analysing  what  the  nature  of  our  existence  is  objectively, 
i.e.  what  we  properly  are  in  view  of  an  intelligence  which  could 
thoroughly  know  us,  and  what  is  the  fundamental  fact  of  our 
life,  meaning  by  life  the  combination  in  one  of  all  the  states  or 
processes  of  which  we  are  capable,  among  which  thought  is 
only  one.  I  hope  before  leaving  off  to  come  a  little  nearer  to 
considerations  of  this  kind,  but  at  present  thought,  our  manner 
of  knowing,  is  all  my  business.     And  in  view  of  this  I  say  that 


we  whatever  we  may  be,  think  and  know  through  mind  and 
body  without  being  able  to  divide  the  two.  In  immediateness 
of  thought  we  ai-e  conscious  of  mind  and  body  in  a  certain 
gradation. 

Correspondingly  with  this  self-consciousness  on  the  one  side 
we  conceive  the  universe  (or  a  universe  if  we  like  the  language 
better— if  we  say  a  universe,  we  are  in  danger  of  the  error,  that 
we  are  acquainted  with  the  genus  of  things  '  universe,'  and  are 
now  coming  to  the  knowledge  of  a  fresh  individual  of  it— if  we 
say  tlte  universe,  we  are  in  danger  of  the  mis-psychologic  error 
that  we  see  the  universe  plainly  before  us,  while  yet  we  have 
got  to  form  the  conception  of  it)— we  conceive  then  the  uni- 
verse a^  answering  to  our  intellective  organization  along  all  the 
scale  which  I  have  mentioned,  as  answering  to  our  mind  or 
thought  with  order  and  law,  and  as  answering  to  our  body  or 
sensiveness  with  what  we  call  its  mechanical   and  chemical 
properties.     Where  the  universe  and  our  intellective  organiza- 
tion properly  meet,  is  what  we  cannot  tell  r   it  is  the  same 
question,  m  another  form,  as  that  of  the  division  between  mind 
and  body.     That  is  to  say,  we  know  perfectly  well  how  far  into 
the  spatial  universe  our  sensibility  extends,  and  how  far  in  the 
sanrie  our  activity  ha^,  what  we  may  call,  immediate  command 
and  the  limits  of  these  mark  similarly  the  limits  of  what  I  have 
called  our  sensive  organization.     And  also,  what  is  most  im- 
portant,  we  know  that  our  consciousness  and  the  univeree   by 
the  very  notion  of  them,  can  never  fuse :  it  is  their  nature  to 
stand  m  antithesis  or  contrast  the  one  to  the  other :  each  gives 
to  the  other  its  distinct  meaning  by  this  contrast :  if  they  did 
fuse,  we  should  not  know  what  either  meant.     But  our  body  is 
composed  of  what  we  call  matter  of  very  various  kinds,  the 
different  kinds  standing  in  most  peculiar  relations  to  conscious- 
ness, which  difference  is  the  cause  of  our  various  sensiveness. 
It  is  probable  that  this  sensiveness  exceeds  in  subtlety  the 
utmost  conceptions  that  we  can  possibly  form :   that  what  we 
call  imagination,  e.g.  is  real  sensiveness,  the  sensive  nerves  being 
m  action  or  disturbance  correspondingly  with  it,  exactly  as  they 
are  m  perception.     To  what  extent  we  may  think  with  what 
we   call   our   body  or   our   corporeal   organization  I  am  sure 


i 


184       SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS  AND   PERCEPTION,  ETC.        [CHAP.  IV. 

I  cannot  tell.  At  this  time,  when  we  are  perhaps  drifting 
away  from  the  old  mispsychologist  errors,  the  error  we  are 
possibly  most  in  danger  of  may  be  that  of  supposing,  that  in 
finding  more  and  more  the  importance  of  matter  as  an  instru- 
ment of  our  thought,  we  are  breaking  down  the  distinction 
between  it  and  consciousness.  I  do  not  see  the  least  how  this 
can  be.  Ever  since  men  have  been,  we  have  talked  of  '  the  eye 
seeing,'  without  having  been  led  by  our  language  to  doubt  but 
that  it  was  we  that  saw,  and  that  the  eye  was  only  our 
instrument.  Even  if  we  should  get  now  to  talk  of  the  brain 
thinking,  or  perceiving  generally,  I  do  not  see  why  anything 
different  should  happen.  The  fact  is,  that  when  we  think  for 
a  moment,  we  recognize  that  what  we  call  thinking,  seeing, 
tasting,  are  what  can  only  be  done  (or  felt)  by  something  which 
we  call  *  1/  or  *  we,'  the  expression  of  consciousness :  if  there 
had  not  been  in  thought  and  in  language  such  notions  and 
expressions  as  *  1/  *  we,'  there  would  not  have  been  such  notions 
and  expressions  as  *  see,'  '  feel ' :  but  of  this  no  more  now. 


CHAPTER  V. 


SENSIBILITY  AND   ACTIVITY. 


Before  proceeding  further  in  this  direction,  it  seems  neces- 
sary to  draw  attention  to  certain  portions  of  our  nature  which 
I  have  not  yet  distinctly  noticed. 

The  immediateness  or  immediate  thought  is  what  it  is  in 
virtue  of  our  whole  nature  and  that  of  the  universe,  and 
involves  therefore  the  elements  which  I  am  going  to  spekk  of 
as  well  as  those  of  which  I  have  spoken.  I  am  going  to  speak 
of  the  manner  in  which  they  come  into  recognition  in  re- 
flection. 

By  sensibility  I  mean  capacity  of  pleasure  and  pain,  and 
I  carefully  distinguish  it  throughout  from  sensiveness,  by  which 
latter  I  mean  the  general  operation  or  instrumentality  of  the 
nerves  of  our  body  in  giving  us  information  of  what  we  then 
call  external  things.  Sensiveness,  as  I  use  the  term,  is  a 
portion,  the  nervous  or  corporeal  portion,  of  the  more  general 
operation  or  faculty  *  perceptiveness.'  We  are  perceptive  as 
intelligences :  we  are  sensive  as  corporealized  or  incorporated 
intelligences. 

It  would  be  very  convenient  if  we  had  one  word  which 
would  express  pleasure  and  pain  together  as  two  species  of  a 
genus  '  disturbance '  or  '  affection '  or  whatever  we  might  call  it, 
instead  of  having  to  speak  of  them  constantly  in  conjunction,* 
as  I  shall  have  to  do.  I  think  I  shall  venture  to  make  a  term' 
for  the  occasion,  and  as  I  have  called  the  capacity  of  pleasure 
and  pain,  sensibility,  shall  call  the  fact  of  pleasure  or  pain  being 


186 


SENSIBILITY   AND   ACTIVITY. 


[chap. 


present,  sentierwe.     *  Sentience/  then  is  the  actual  feeling  of 
pleasure  or  pain. 

In  speaking  of  the  immediateness  at  first,  I  used  variously 
the  expressions  'immediate  thought'  and  'immediate  feeling,* 
using  more,  as  I  went  on,  the  former,  as  I  have  been  speaking 
more  of  consciousness  in  its  relation  to  perceptiveness. 

As  we  disengage  *  ourselves '  however  from  the  immediate- 
ness, it  is  quite  as  much  in  the  point  of  view  of  sentience  as  in 
that  of  thought :  some  might  say  more.  Some  will  say  that 
pleasure  or  pain  is  all  that  we  are  properly  conscious  of:  in- 
fact,  that  consciousness  is  the  feeling  of  pleasure  or  pain,  and 
nothing  more.  I  have  no  wish  to  dispute  about  the  meaning 
of  the  term  'consciousness.'  Myself  I  prefer  the  term  'self- 
consciousness,'  meaning  by  it  what  is  sometimes  called  'the 
feeling  of  personality,'  i.e.  the  reflective  of  thought  or  notice 
of  ourselves,  as  existing  and  as  distinguished  from  something 
else  also  existing,  which  is  not  ourselves. 

But  so  far  as  we  do  use  the  term  'conscious'  as  distinct 
from  '  self-conscious '  (independent  of  its  later,  more  or  less 
moral,  use,  as  when  we  say '  we  are  conscious  of  such  and  such  a 
good  and  bad  feeling,  or  of  having  done  such  and  such  a 
thing '),  it  is  perhaps  in  reference  to  sentience  it  might  best  be 
used.  The  application  of  the  notion  of  'immediateness'  to 
sentience  is  not  exactly  the  same  as  its  application  to  thought. 
Pleasure  and  pain  only  exist  as  we  feel  them,  i.e.  in  this  use  of 
the  term,  are  conscious  of  them :  here  therefore,  till  there  is 
consciousness,  there  is  nothing:  pleasure  and  pain  are  the 
foundation  of  the  subjective,  of  ourselves.  This  is  true:  but 
there  are  two  things  which  we  must  bear  in  mind :  one  is,  that 
there  is  all  the  difiference  in  the  world  whether  pleasure  and 
pain  are,  or  are  not,  attended  to :  and  the  other  (which  is  what, 
as  well  in  regard  of  thought  as  of  sentience,  makes  it  fit  to 
start  from  *  immediateness ')  that  when  we  are  speaking  of  any 
felt,  i.e.  of  any  particular,  pleasure  or  pain,  we  must  make  a 
supposition,  or  have  something  in  our  thoughts,  beyond  the 
pleasure  or  pain  itself — the  supposition  viz.  of  a  reason  for  it  in 
the  existing  state  of  things.  One  way  of  realizing  what  I  have 
called  'immediateness'  might  be  to  conceive  it  as  the  actual 


v.] 


SENSIBILITY  AND  ACTIVITY. 


187 


state  of  things  present  on  any  occasion  of  our  beginning  to  be 
;  ourselves;  to  reflect,  be  self-conscious,  notice,  attend     There 
IS  no  pleasure  or  pain  till  we  are   more  or  less  distinctly 
conscious,  but  there  is,  independently  of  the  consciousness  the 
occasion  of  it :  our  becoming  conscious  is  not  the  cause  of  the 
pleasure  or  pain,  but  is  the  waking,  if  we  may  speak  not  quite 
accumtely,  to  a  state  of  things  in  which  pleasure  or  pain  are  as 
It  were  awaiting  us.     In  a  somewhat  similar  though  reverse 
way  pleasure  or  pain  may  be  said  to  vanish,  when  somethW 
occurs  entirely  to  absorb  the  attention  in  a  different  direction 
though  aU  the  occasion  or  reason  of  them  exists  in  full  vigour' 
it  18  important  to  consider,  about  sentience  as  about  thought 
that  in  mentally  isolating  it  in  order  to  conceive  and  talk  about 
It,  we  must  be  aware  all  along  that  it  is  not  really  isolated 
that  It  IS  a  part  of  what  I  have  called  a   state  of  things '  and 
that  thus  It  has  its  reasons  without  our  consciousness,  though 
It  exists  only  as  a  part  of  our  consciousness.     By  what  I  call 
immediateness  I  want  to  represent  the  state  of  things  logically 
pnor  to  our  distinct  consciousness,  which  contains  in  it  the 
reason  why  our  consciousness,  when  it  begins,  is  what  it  is— 
whether  of  pleasure  or  of  pain. 

Under  the  circumstances  in  which  we  suppose  reflection 
attention,  notice,    fairly    operative,   we    may    say   that    self- 
consciousness  is  always  accompanied,  more  or  less,  by  sentience 
or  the  feelmg  of  pleasure  or  pain :  and  I  do  not  know  that 
there  would  be  great  harm  in  saying  that  this  is  what  we  are 
realli,  conscious  of.     But  we  must  mean,  then,  a  very  great 
deal  by  "more  or  less.'     During  a  large  part  of  our  thinking 
existence,  pleasure  or  pain,  supposing  them  to  exist,  are  what 
we  are  not  in  the  least  attending  to,  and  our  attention  is  given 
to  all  sorts  of  things  different  from  them :  so  that  if  we  say 
that  pleasure  or  pain  is  all  that  we  are  really  conscious  of,  we 
are  leaving  very  little  meaning  to  the  word  consciousness  '  It 
is  more  convenient  to  use  the  word  'sentience'  only  when  the 
pleasure  or  pain  are  sufficiently  prominent  to  be  real  objects  of 
attention. 

Sensibility,  the  capacity,  or,  if  we  prefer  to  say  so,  sentience 
the  actuality,  of  pleasure  or  pain,  is  the  great  fact  of  our  nature' 


188 


SENSIBILITY   AND  ACTIVITY. 


[chap. 


{ 
i 


I 


f! 


1 

i 


in  view  of  action ;  though  I  put  this,  as  we  shall  see,  in  a  more 
qualified  manner  than  many  would.  And  our  intellectiveness, 
as  we  shall  soon  also  see,  is  closely  wrapt  up  both  with  our 
sensibility  and  our  activity.     Of  the  latter  I  will  speak  now. 

It  may  be  remembered  how  some  time  since  I  said,  that 
what  I  called  'reflectiveness'  was  intermediate  between  im- 
mediate thought  and  what  I  called  'immediate'  or  'reflex' 
action.  Immediate  or  reflex  action,  speaking  roughly,  is  where 
there  is  action  of  one  thing  upon  another,  and  continuous 
or  spontaneous  re-action  from  this  other. 

I  only  allude  to  this  for  the  purpose  of  pointing  out  the 
difference — a  difference,  however,  entirely  gradational — ^be- 
tween this  and  an  action  from  without  upon  what  we  call  an 
intelligence,  with  will  leading  to  an  action  on  its  or  his  part,  no 
longer  to  be  called  a  simple  re-action,  but  a  consequence 
through  a  complicated  intermediation.  What  I  am  sa3dng 
now  is  from  the  physical  point  of  view.  We  are  comparing 
what  takes  place  when  an  object,  for  instance,  touches  the 
tentacles  of  a  zoophyte  and  they  close  upon  it,  or  (what  I 
suppose  is  similar)  when  a  warm  current  strikes  on  the  pores 
of  our  body  and  they  open  or  relax  to  it — we  compare  this 
with  what  takes  place,  say,  when  somebody  throws  a  cricket- 
ball  at  me  striking  me  with  violence  and  I  throw  it  back  at 
him  with  the  same.  Between  the  first  action  and  the  response 
in  the  former  case  there  is  nothing  intermediate,  in  the  latter 
a  great  deal :  and  into  this,  from  our  physical  point  of  view,  we, 
as  spectators  looking  on,  can  pass  to  a  certain  limited  extent. 
We  are  able  to  know  that  the  impact  of  the  cricket-ball 
produces  strong  pressure  upon  the  flesh  and  nerves,  and  we 
know,  taking  up  our  thread  again,  that  there  is  contraction  and 
movement  of  the  muscles  of  the  arm  in  picking  up  the  cricket- 
ball  and  throwing  it  back.  For  all  that  we  know  from  this  point 
of  view,  it  might  be  immediate  or  reflex  action  :  I  might  be  what 
is  called  an  automaton  in  it :  the  pressure  of  the  flesh  by  the  ball 
at  first  might  touch  a  spring  and  cause  all  the  following  motion. 
Here  we  look  at  action  from  the  point  of  view  of  physics  or 
motion :  let  us  change  our  point  of  view,  and  look  at  it  from 
another  side. 


v.] 


SENSIBILITY   AND  ACTIVITY. 


189 


Immediateness,  or  thought  in  so  far  as  it  is  immediate  I 
have  described  as  inactive.     We  wake,  in  the  language  which 
I   have   used,  into   a  state  of  things.     We  are   in  indistinct 
presence  of  what  is  not  we,  and  it  is  in  similar  presence  of 
us.     This  mdistinct  presence  cannot  become  distinct  without 
what  I  have  called  'notice'  or  'attention':    and  this  means 
that  we  choose  out  and  direct  our  thought  to  a  portion  of 
what  is  present  to  us  and  not  yet  set  off  from  us,  and  this 
effort   IS   'will.'     I   am   not   here   concerned   to   consider   the 
nature  of  this  '  will '  or  what  is  called  the  '  freedom  '  of  it     It 
IS  certainly  not  arbitrar>^  and  our  attention  to  one  part  of  what 
IS  before  us  rather  than  to  another  is  suggested  by  something 
independent  of  us :  the  nature  of  the  suggestion  is  not  matter 
for  discussion  now.     All  that  is  of  consequence  now  is  that, 
alongside  of  our  self-consciousness  and  perceptiveness,  and  again 
of  our  sensibility,  there  is  going  on  within  us  a  fourth  some- 
thing, which  is  the  determination  by  us  of  our  attention  hither 
and  thither.     These  four  things  are  not  independent  of  each 
other :  they  enter  each  into  each.     Though  I  divide  them  in 
this  manner,  there  is  no  particular  principle  in  their  being  just 
so  many  or  just  so  divided :  numbers  and  sharp  divisions  have 
no  place  m  philosophy.     There  is  a  sort  of  contrast  or  counter- 
concurrence  between  self-consciousness  and  perceptiveness,  and 
there  is  something  of  the  same  between  sensibility  and  activity 
The  first  two  go  together  for  our  intellective,  the  second  two 
for  our  active,  nature :  but  we  are  each  one :   we  should  not 
perceive  in  the  particular  manner  in  which  we  do,  if  we  were 
not  sentient  and  active  in  the  particular  manner  in  which  we 
are :   so  that  our  general  feeling  (or,  if  we  prefer  the  word 
'consciousness')  is  made  up  of  all  these  things  more  or  less  at 
once  and  in  conjunction. 

We  pass  onward  from  one  experience  to  another,  in  respect 
of  our  activity,  just  as  we  do  in  respect  of  our  self-consciousness 
and  perceptiveness.  As  our  self-consciousness  is  extended 
to  that  semi-consciousness,  as  I  called  it,  which  we  have 
of  our  corporeal  organization,  so  the  experience  of  our  power 
in  directing  our  attention  is  extended  to  the  experience  of  our 
power  m  directing  corporeal  movement,  or  (what  is  the  same 


I 

% 


[ 

p 


« 


190 


SENSIBILITY   AND  ACTIVITY. 


[chap. 


thing)  to  the  experience  of  our  body  not  only  as  a  sensive 
organization,  but  as  an  active  organization  or  machine  for 
producing  mechanical  effects.  Our  experience  of  it  in  this  way 
is  exactly  analogous  to  our  experience  of  it  in  the  other:  we 
can  move  it  partly,  but  it  can  be  moved  without  our  moving  it. 
In  moving  the  portions  of  it,  we  move  them  as  partly  ourselves 
and  partly  not  ourselves :  that  is,  the  movement  of  the  arm  for 
instance  is  a  contraction  of  the  muscle,  resulting  from  our  will 
and  moving  the  matter  which  composes  the  arm,  according  to 
the  same  mechanical  laws  which  regulate  the  motion  of  any 
matter.  Our  body  stands  to  us,  in  regard  of  our  motion  of  its 
parts  and  of  anything  else  by  means  of  it,  just  in  an  analogous 
relation  with  that  in  which  it  stands  to  us  in  regard  of  the 
sensiveness  of  particular  portions  of  it  and  our  perceptiveness 
through  it. 

I  have  described  sensibility  and  activity  as  standing  in  a 
special  relation  to  each  other,  but  this  relation  is  difficult,  and 
involves  another  element,  upon  which  I  do  not  want  to  dwell  at 
length  now.  I  have  approached  towards  the  consideration  of 
it  in  speaking  of  the  relation  of  sensibility  to  immediateness. 

Activity,  like  sensibility,  has  its  root  in  immediateness: 
that  is,  in  order  to  understand  activity,  we  must  begin  with  the 
supposition  of  a  state  of  things,  which  (though  that  is  not  a 
matter  of  our  knowledge,  more  than  implicitly,  or  involvedly) 
contains  a  reason  for  the  activity  (when  it  comes  to  be  recog- 
nized by  us)  being  what  it  is,  and  no  other.  The  common 
parent  both  of  sensibility  and  of  activity  may  be  said  to  be 
'want' — 'want'  as  a  fact,  which  we  must  carefully  distinguish 
from  want  as  a  feeling,  or  the  feeling  of  want^  Want,  in  what 
I  have  called  immediateness,  exists  as  a  fact,  and  when  this 
immediateness  passes  into  reflection,  this  fact  of  want  passes 
into  felt  want  or  uneasiness,  and  concurrently  with  this  (not  as 
a  result  of  it)  the  fact  of  want  impels  action.  What  I  call 
*  immediateness '  is  the  presentment  to  us  of  a  state  of  things,  in 
which  things  are  as  they  are,  but  in  which,  beyond  this,  things 
are  also  not  as  they  ought  to  be — by  which  ought  I  do  not  mean 


1  See  this  developed  in  his  Treatise  on  the  Moral  Ideals,  esp.  p.  26  foil. 


v.] 


SENSIBILITY   AND  ACTIVITY. 


191 

any  reference  to  morals  (though  this  principle  is  veiy  important 
m  Its  application  to  them),  but  I  mean  simply  that  the  state  of 
things  IS  to  be  looked  at,  not  merely  as  it  is  in  itself  at  the 
moment,  but  as  it  contains  or  implies  what  is  coming  or  should 
come  next.     This  is  what  'wants'  to   be  (speaking  of  fact) 
what  there  is  (the  fact  of)  want  of     If  we  suppose  the  state  of 
things  parsing  mto  the  next  state  of  things  without  reflection 
this  want  axjts  of  itself  to  supply  itself,  and  the  we^  state  of 
things  IS  accordingly  what  it  is.     If  the  state  of  things  passes 
into  reflection,  or  comes,  as  some  would  say,  into  consciousness, 
then  the  want,  concurrently  with  its  tendency  to  supply  itself, 
IS  also  felt  as  want,  i.e.  as  uneasiness,  passing,  with  further 
reflection,  into  desire.     This  account  of  the  commencement  of 
our  sensibility  is  in  substance,  I  think,  only  more  fully,  the 
same  which  I  said  about  it  before :  except  that  here  we  have  it 
in  relation  with  activity. 

I  have  expressed  in  another  place  my  dissent  from  the  view 
which  makes  activity  a  result  of  felt  want  or  uneasiness,  as  if  it 
were  something  which  we  were  better  without,  a  necessary  evil. 
It  is  better,  I  think,  to  consider  activity  and   sensibility  as 
equally  initial  principles  in  our  nature.     The  importance  of  the 
question  depends  very  much  on  the  manner  in  which  it  is  put. 
Variety,  change,  particularity,  on  the  one  side,  and  imperfection 
on  the  other,  are  in  a  manner  synonymous  terms :  the  change 
in  a  universe  thus  made  up  is  a  continued  course  of  want  (as 
I  have  described  the  fact  of  want,)  and  of  the  supply  of  it.     We 
may  say  simply,  the  same  is  the  case  with  us:  but  the  point 
I  think  to  be  observed  is,  that  even  on  the  supposition  of  the 
fullest  reflection,  we  are  not  entirely  put  into  our  own  conscious 
hands,  so  as  for  our  action  to  be  dependent  only  on  want  which 
we  feel.     I  do  not  speak  here  in  reference  to  our  corporeal 
nature  (as  to  which  the  matter  is  not  of  consequence):  I  mean 
that  our  nature  takes  pleasure  in  its  active  impulses,  inde- 
pendent of  the  conscious  pursuit  of  an  end  with  our  activity  • 
these  impulses  have  their  reason,  and  betoken  in  this  way  want 
05  fact,  but  they  are  quite  different  in  their  nature  from  the 
desire  of  sensible  gratification. 

If  we  now  recall  to  mind  what  I  said  a  short  time  since 


192 


SENSIBILITY   AND  ACTIVITY. 


[chap. 


v.] 


SENSIBILITY   AND  ACTIVITY. 


193 


r 


t 


about  action  viewed  from  the  side  of  physics,  and  compare  it 
with  what  I  have  now  said  about  action  viewed  from  the  side 
of  immediate  thought,  we  seem  to  see  two  portions,  which  put 
together,  make  up  intelligent  or  volitional  action  as  a  whole. 
But  this  is  not  exactly  so,  and  the  supposition  that  it  is  so 
seems  to  me  one  of  the  errors  which,  in  the  present  state  of 
philosophy,  we  are  most  in  danger  of  We  have  to  remember 
that  they  are  seen  from  different  sides.  Looking  from  the  side 
of  consciousness  and  from  the  side  of  physical  fact  is  like 
looking  at  a  carpet,  hung  up,  from  the  one  side  and  from  the 
other.  What  we  see  is  the  same,  and  yet  not  the  same :  and 
those  who  add  the  facts  of  body  and  facts  of  mind  together  as 
two  constituents  of  the  universe  seem  to  do  very  much  as  if  it 
should  be  said  there  are  two  carpets,  which  make  up  all  of 
what  we  see :  the  one  carpet  rough  and  unfinished,  the  other 
smooth  and  polished :  the  one  with  a  man  in  the  pattern  of  it 
who  has  got  a  sword  in  his  left  hand,  the  other  with  a  man 
who  has  a  sword  in  his  right.  In  a  way,  it  may  be  said  that  it 
is  two  carpets  that  we  see :  but  though  we  may  combine  them 
too-ether  if  we  know  how,  we  must  not  add  them  or  put  them 
side  by  side  with  each  other,  for  they  are  viewed  each  in  a 
different   manner,  and   cannot   in   this  way  be   brought   into 

relation. 

Action  upon  anything  and  response  to  it,  so  far  as  we  can 
see  them  from  the  side  of  physics,  are  one  side  of  the  carpet, 
and  sensibility  and  activity,  which  we  may  put  together  as 
volition,  are  the  other.  Corresponding  with  pressure  upon  the 
nerves  on  the  one  side,  there  is  feeling  of  pain  upon  the  other : 
and,  after  more  or  less  of  mental  complication,  we  come  to 
what,  on  the  one  side,  is  will  to  move  the  arm,  and  on  the 
other,  is  contraction  of  the  muscles,  actually  moving  it. 

The  side  however  of  consciousness  or  of  thought  depends, 
no  less  than  the  other  side,  upon  immediateness,  i.e.  upon 
actuality  or  state  of  things.  Our  initiation  of  anything  on  the 
side  of  feeling  is  not  capricious  or  arbitrary,  nor  does  the 
supposition  of  its  being  our  own  involve  that  of  its  being  this : 
it  is  determined  to  be  what  it  is,  and  not  something  else,  by 
something  existing :  and  this  concurrence  of  self-initiation  with 


existing  reason  for  it  is  what  I  have  endeavoured  to  express  by 
waking  to  something,  or  by  commencing  reflection. 

By  saying,  some  time  since,  that  reflection  was  intermediate 
between   immediate   thought   and   immediate   action,  what  I 
meant  was  this:   that  reflection,  as  we  have  seen,  brings  us 
into  a  region  of  what  I  called  'semi-consciousness,'  which  is 
the  state  of  feeling  in  which  we  stand  in  regard  of  our  body. 
From  the  other  side,  if  we  follow  immediate  action  upwards  or 
inwards,  we  come  to  a  region  of  more  refined  physics,  of  vital 
physics,  where  there  are  phenomena  of  a  very  peculiar  nature. 
This  region  corresponds,  from  the  other  side,  with  the  semi- 
consciousness.    In  this  region  of  the  study  of  life  we  have 
consciousness  and  physical  fact  in  very  close  proximity  and 
entanglement.     But  for  all  this,  we  never  can  get  both  into 
the  same  view,  any  more  than  the  two  sides  of  the  carpet.    We 
may,  and  in  fact  must,  deal  with  self-consciousness  as  a  fact  of 
the  universe,  because  we  want  some  means  of  expressing,  in 
language  of  such  fact,  the  interval  between  action  upon  sen- 
tient beings  and  reaction  from  them.     But  when  we  deal  thus 
with  self-consciousness,  we  simply  make  an  assumption :  we  do 
n9t  any  more,  for  our  thus  dealing  with  it,  know  or  express 
what  it  is.     If  we  say  it  is  physical  fact,  we  seem  to  me  to  be 
simply,  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  misusing  language,  much 
as  if  we  should  say  'space  is  time.'     Because,  from  another 
point  of  view,  we  do  perfectly  know  what  it  is,  know  it  better 
than  we  can  know  anything  else,  for  it  is  of  all  things  most 
intimate  to  us.     And  from  the  side  of  this  knowledge  of  it, 
physical  fact  looks  entirely  different  to  us  from  the  way  in 
which  it  looked  from  the  other,  and  we  at  once  seem  to  put  out 
of  the  question  the  notion  of  resolving  consciousness  into  it 

However,  I  will  say  no  more  of  this,  because  it  is  a  matter 
where,  from  its  very  ultimateness,  there  cannot  be  given  much 
reason,  and  where  this  is  so,  mere  reiteration  is  useless. 


H. 


13 


» 


CHAPTER  VI. 

SPACE   AND   TIME. 

In  speaking,  as  I  go  on,  about  the  distmctification  of  our 
notions,  which  is  the  process  of  reflection,  I  shall  have  to  speak 
about  the  meaning  of  a  counter-notion  or  ground^— that  which  a 
notion  is  specially  distinguished  from  or  relieved  agamst.  1 
think,  however,  that  I  shall  be  understood,  if  instead  of  waitmg 
for  what  I  have  to  say  then,  I  a  little  anticipate  it  in  speaking 
of  the  idea  or  notion  of  space. 

Space  is  in  reality  the  counter-notion  of  matter  or  body, 
that  from  which,  as  matter  or  body,  it  is  distinguished.     When 
we  say,  'There  is  something  there,'  we  mean  'There  is  not 
empty  space,'  and  when  we  say,  '  There  is  nothing  there,'  we 
mean  '  There  is  empty  space.'     In  using  this  language  we  are 
speaking  in  the  manner  which  I,  in  another  place,  have  called 
'  phenomenal,'  i.e.  we  have  in  our  reflection  come  fully  into  the 
notion  of  our  being  corporeal  beings  in  a  physical  world.     It  is 
with  this  notion  possessing  us  that  we  use  the  language  which 
I  mentioned  above :  phenomenally  space  is  nothing.     Our  ob- 
servation, or  notice,  or  recognition  of  it,  or  however  we  describe 
our  coming  by  the  notion  (for  to  me  it  seems  unimportant),  is 
in  fact  the  notice  of  absence  of  response  to  our  sensiveness,  the 
effort  to  handle  or  see  (with  therefore  the  presence  of  the 
feeling  that  there  is  or  ought  to  be  something  to  feel  or  see), 
but  the  finding  nothing:   the  perception  of  space  is  in  fact 
abortive  sensiveness. 

When  we  phenomenally  perceive,  or  in  other  words  exercise 

1  See  Expl.  pp.  23,  24, 


VI.] 


SPACE  AND  TIME. 


195 


sense,  and  yet  do  not  perceive  anything,  what  we  perceive  is 
space.  We  are  seeing,  and  yet  do  not  see ;  we  are  touching, 
and  yet  do  not  touch ;  because  there  is  nothing  to  see  or  touch : 
and  yet  the  state  of  things  is  different  from  that  which  it  would 
be  with  us  at  the  same  moment  if  there  were  no  such  things  as 
eyes  or  touching  power.  This  seems  to  me  the  simplest  way  of 
conceiving,  as  I  understand  it,  pure  or  bare  sensive  perception, 
as  I  translate  the  Kantian  'reine  Anschauung.'  With  Kant, 
'  Empfindung,'  that  is,  taste,  smell,  the  being  affected  by  colour 
&c.  constitute  the  matter  of '  experience,'  and  give  us  the  notion 
of  reality :  we,  in  virtue  of  the  constitution  of  our  perceptive 
faculty,  spatialize  these,  perceive  them  as  in  space,  and  hence 
proceeds  the  universe  as  we  are  aware  of  it.  So  far,  then,  as  we 
exercise  our  perceptive  faculty  without  these  to  apply  to,  we  have 
*  reine  Anschauung,'  pure  or  bare  perception,  the  spatializing  (or 
the  perception  as  in  space  alone)  without  anything  to  spatialize  or 
to  perceive.    This  agrees  with  my  own  description  given  above. 

All  discussions  about  space  are  in  one  point  of  view  un- 
profitable, namely,  because  space,  so  far  as  it  is  an  idea  or 
notion  at  all,  is  preeminently  what  Locke  would  call  a  '  simple ' 
one,  and  these  simple  ideas  of  Locke  will  not  bear  much  talking 
about.  They  cannot  be  defined,  and  for  their  reality  in  any 
way  Locke  has  to  appeal  to  the  individual  consciousness  of  each 
one :  when  we  are  talking  about  them,  therefore,  it  is  hard  to 
say  whether  the  word  '  space '  represents  the  same  notion  in  the 
mind  of  each,  and  hard  to  know  how  to  come  at  the  knowledge 
what  it  ought  to  represent. 

The  fact  is,  we  can  tell,  in  many  respects,  how  we  ought 
not  to  apply  the  term  'space,'  and  we  can  find  out  what  we 
may  call  various  relations  of  space  to  other  notions:  but  we 
cannot  at  all  find  out  and  be  sure  that  when  different  people 
use  the  term  'space,'  even  thinkingly,  they  mean  the  same 
thing  by  it ;  that  is,  in  other  words,  we  cannot  tell  whether  there 
is  any  one  meaning  of  *  space '  for  us  to  find  out.  The  word  is 
important  in  philosophical  discussion,  not  for  its  own  meaning, 
but  on  account  of  its  being  one  of  the  terms  which  go  with 
others  to  exhibit  various  philosophical  views  of  the  universe — 
that  is,  it  is  important  in  its  relations. 

13—2 


\}- 


196 


SPACE   AND  TIME. 


[chap- 


VI.] 


SPACE   AND  TIME. 


197 


It  is  important,  however,  that  we  should  remember  that  we 
can  tell  in  many  respects  what  space  is  not,  or,  to  speak  more 
correctly,  when  the  term  is  misapplied.  Thus  I  believe  the 
greater  number  of  people  misconceive  the  notion  of  space  by 
identifying  it  with  the  illuminated  atmosphere  which  forms  the 
groundwork  or  canvas  of  the  visual  picture  before  their  eyes. 
I  call  this  a  misconception  of  the  notion  of  space,  because  it  is 
plainly  something  different  from  space,  something  physical,  as 
I  have  above  described  it.  And  yet,  if  a  large  body  of  people 
have,  as  I  believe  they  have,  this  notion  of  space,  to  what 
purpose  are  we  to  talk  of  space  as  of  a  simple  idea  which  each 
has  in  his  mind  the  same  as  others,  and  about  which  men  are 
sure  to  understand  one  another  without  mutual  explanation, 
and  without  definition? 

In  Mr  Abbott's  argument  against  Mr  Bain  on  the  subject  of 
space,  where  in  answer  to  Mr  Bain's  saying  (as  I  should  also 
say)  that  we  get  the  notion  of  space  by  movement  (of  the  arms 
&c.),  Mr  Abbott  says  that  the  notion  which  we  get  in  this  way 
is  not  that  of  space,  which  we  get  rather  by  sight  &c.,  I  do  not 
exactly  see  how  the  question  is  to  be  settled.  In  order  to  agree 
which  of  these  is  the  true  notion  of  spa^e,  we  must  have  agreed 
first  what  space  is,  i.e.  upon  a  definition  or  description  of  it,  but 
this  is  the  very  point  in  question.  Our  various  muscular 
movements  leave  in  our  mind,  we  will  say,  a  certain  remem- 
brance, experience,  or  notion :  and  again  our  sight  of  various 
objects  and  their  apparent  intervals  in  the  visual  picture  leave 
us  another  remembrance,  experience,  or  notion  :  how  are  we  to 
know  which  of  these  is  the  notion  of  space  unless  we  have  a 
third  description  of  space  to  compare  them  with  ?  And  if  so,  is 
not  this  the  notion  of  space,  rather  than  either  of  them  ? 

The  notion  of  space  is  an  important  ingredient  or  part  of 
our  notion  of  the  phenomenal  universe  or  external  world,  and 
we  mean  by  space  a  supposed  something  which  (speaking  from 
the  subjective  point  of  view)  enables  us  to  unite  in  one  con- 
ception our  heterogeneous  experiences,  or  (speaking  from  the 
objective  point  of  view)  which  gives  a  basis  or  bond  of  connexion 
to  our  heterogeneous  sensations  (or  occasions  of  sentience); 
which  experiences  or  sensations  are  what  make  us  aware  of  the 


so-called  qualities  of  matter.  According  as  we  conceive  the 
phenomenal  universe,  so  we  must  conceive  space.  It  is  that  in 
the  phenomenal  universe,  which,  existing  with  whatever  sort  of 
existence  we  attribute  to  that  universe  as  a  fact  or  whole, 
nevertheless  gives  us  no  sentience  and  offers  to  us  no  resistance, 
so  that  it  does  not  exist  in  the  manner  in  which  we  suppose 
particular  portions  of  that  universe  to  exist.  To  unite  Kantist 
language  with  mine,  it  is  pure  or  bare  phenomenalism,  and  we 
must  assign  to  it  a  subjective  or  objective  existence  according  to 
our  general  view  of  the  phenomenal  universe.  We  may  regard 
it  as  that  by  which  we  create  to  ourselves  the  phenomenal 
universe :  or  we  may  regard  it  as  that  which  contains,  holds, 
gives  a  frame  or  canvas  for,  the  various  sensal  objects  which  we 
come  to  know — their  'continent'  as  I  have  elsewhere  called 
it^ :  were  it  not  for  this  these  objects  would  not  be  a  universe 
to  us. 

In  reality  then,  so  far  as  we  have  one  notion  of  space,  what 
we  mean  by  it,  or  should  mean  by  it,  to  think  about  it  to  any 
purpose,  is,  that  which  is  wanting  to  our  sensiveness,  the  Kantist 
*  experience '  (or,  if  we  take  the  other  view,  to  the  qualities  of 
bodies  which  our  sensiveness  informs  us  of),  in  order  to  make  up 
the  phenomenalism  of  the  universe.  I  say  'the  phenomenalism 
of  the  universe '  rather  than  '  the  phenomenal  universe,'  because 
to  the  making  up  of  the  phenomenal  universe  altogether  there 
go  some  other  notions,  higher  in  the  scale  of  knowledge  than 
that  of  space,  which  are  not  before  our  consideration  now :  but, 
though  it  is  owing  to  these  that  we  conceive  the  phenomenalist 
universe  in  the  manner  in  which  we  do  conceive  it,  yet  these 
are  not  a  part  of  what  makes  us  call  it  phenomenal,  space  and 
sensiveness  being  what  are  essential  to  this. 

The  reason  why  I  do  not  here  make  use  of  what  might 
be  thought  the  easier  expression,  'external  world,'  is  because 
the  word  'external,'  in  the  proper  use  of  it,  supposes  space, 
and  is  therefore  better  avoided  in  trying  to  come  at  this  true 
notion  of  space.  It  is  wrong  to  describe  space  in  any  way  as 
'externality,'  because  'external'  means  'external  to  something'; 

1  Ea:pl.  10. 


-Ill 


198 


SPACE  AND  TIME. 


[chap. 


but  externality  to  our  bodies  will  not  represent  space,  because 
our  bodies  tbemselves  have  magnitude  or  occupy  spa<;e :  and 
externality  to  our  minds  can  only  mean  independence  of  them, 
which  does  not  represent  anything  like  what  we  want  to  mean 
by  space.    Externality  is  a  derivative  notion  from  that  of  space. 
Still,  if  we  keep  this  in  mind,  so  as  not  to  be  misled,  the 
expression  *  external  world'  may  represent  without  harm  the 
system  of  material  objects  in  which  we  find  or  imagine  ourselves, 
and  so  is  equivalent  to  what  I  call  the  phenomenal  universe. 
It  will  be  remembered,  that  my  use  of  the  term  'phenomenal' 
depends  upon  that  of  the  term  *  phenomenon'  in  science  for 
an  object  or  fact  of  nature.     I  do  not  admit  any  meaning  in 
*  phaenomena'  as  distinct  from  '  noumena,'  or  in  'phaenomenology' 
as  distinct  from  'ontology.' 

It  will  be  seen,  from  the  above,  that  space  is  a  general 
expression  for  the  aggregate  or  summary  of  those  relations  m 
the  phenomenal  universe,  which  are  not  matters  of  sentience  or 
resistance.     For  these  relations  we  have   the   various  names 
position,  direction,  distance,  shape,  magnitude;  possibly  others. 
By  space  we  mean  a  combination  of  these  into  one  notion,  a 
combination   which   they  are   evidently  susceptible   of.     This 
notion  we  represent  to  ourselves  imaginatively  (but,  if  we  take 
the  representation  for  the  notion,  illusively)  by  means  of  what 
I  have  called  the  groundwork  of  the  visual  picture  before  our 
eye,  the  lighted   atmosphere   which   intervenes  between  the 
various  objects  which  we  see ;  this  is  simply  a  material  picture 
of  space  altogether,  just  as  a  piece  of  white  paper  is  of  space 
horizontal.     Again,  the  various  relations  which  I  have  spoken 
-    of  above  are  coordinated  by  mathematicians,  and  in  virtue  of 
such  coordination  we  speak  of  space  having  three  dimensions : 
these  relations  altogether  we  call  relations  of  space,  and  unite 
them  into  one  science. 

We  perceive  space  then  in  any  way  in  which  we  become 
aware  of  the  magnitude,  position,  shape,  &c.,  of  anything  (in 
which  case  the  perception  of  space  is  combined  with  sentience), 
or  when  we  become  aware  of  interval  or  distance ;  in  which  case 
it  is  unconnected  with  sentience  during  a  portion  of  the  per- 
ception, being  so  far  perception  of  space  pure  or  bare. 


VI.] 


space  and  time. 


199 


Time  and  space  are  constantly  put  together  in  philosophical 
treatment  as  a  sort  of  pair  or  couple,  and  though  this  is  what 
one  should  be  very  jealous  of,  yet  still  it  is  evident  from  various 
considerations  that  they  do  form  a  pair  of  this  kind.  One  such 
consideration  is  language :  the  when  and  the  where  of  a  fact  are 
what  we  chiefly  want  to  know  about  it. 

Time  and  space  in  a  manner  meet  in  a  point,  the  present  or 
immediate,  and  then,  as  thought  of,  diverge.  That  is,  the 
notions  of  them  are  two  different  directions  which  our  reflection 
takes.  This  will  appear  if  we  look  for  a  moment  at  the  notions 
of  time  and  space  in  this  way :  they  are  both  of  them,  as  I  just 
pointed  out  about  *  space,'  combinations  of  notions  of  relations 
rather  than  smythmg  else,  and  this  is  more  apparent  in  some 
other  languages  than  our  own.  In  Greek  totto^  and  %<w/3a, 
place  or  position,  and  room  or  extension,  are  indicated  by 
different  words,  and  in  reality  are  quite  distinct  notions :  and 
similarly  as  to  time,  that  which  answers  to  position  in  space, 
*  a  point  of  time,'  is  quite  distinct  from  the  notion  of  interval 
or  duration.  This  is  important  in  regard  of  the  relation 
of  time  and  space  the  one  to  the  other.  It  is  in  respect 
of  the  points  that  they  may  be  said  to  meet.  These,  in  the 
aTreipoKoa/jbofi^j  or  'great  universe'  not  of  being  only,  but  of 
being  with  all  its  vicissitude  and  change — the  universe  of 
occurrence,  of  history  in  that  objective  sense  in  which  we  often 
use  the  word  history,  viz.  for  that  which  it  is  the  business 
of  history  to  set  before  us — are  so  to  speak  the  latitude  and 
longitude  of  a  fact,  the  two  coordinates  which  sufficiently  fix  it. 
In  respect  of  these  points  then,  time  and  space  meet  in  a  fact, 
in  an  immediateness.  But  if  from  this  immediateness  we  begin 
to  reflect,  and  conceive  our  point  of  time  extended  into  a 
duration,  and  our  point  of  space  expanded  into  an  amount 
or  magnitude  of  it,  we  get  into  two  different  lines  of  thought, 
in  fact,  into  two  different  worlds.  Magnitude  of  space  and 
duration  of  time  are  two  notions  in  themselves  heterogeneous 
and  disparate,  which  unite  nevertheless  in  a  manner  most 
difficult  for  us  to  realize  in  what  we  call  the  sameness  or 
identity  of  a  phenomenal  thing,  which  I  hope  at  a  future  time 
to  speak  of. 

^  Formed  on  the  analogy  of  fuKpSKoafwi  &g» 


I 


li 


200 


SPACE   AND  TIME. 


[chap.  VI. 


The  relation  together  of  time  and  space  in  our  consciousness 
is  no  less  peculiar  and  difficult.     They  come  out  of  immediate- 
ness  into  our  reflectiooal  view  in  a  different  way,  or,  we  might  say, 
from  opposite  directions.     As  they  do  this,  space  has  the  appear- 
ance to  us  of  being  the  more  objectively  real  and  necessary, 
time  of  being  the  more  intimate  to  us.    If  we  could  conceivably 
get  out  of  ourselves  for  a  moment,  and  look  at  immediateness  as 
immediateness,  it  would  involve  space,  but  not  necessarily  time. 
If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  abolish  altogether  the  supposition  of 
what  I  have  called  immediateness,  and   consider,  as  is  very 
constantly  done,  what  we  call  '  our  feeling '  only,  without  any 
concomitant  supposition  of  there  existing  a  state  of  things,  in 
which  is  involved  reason  for  our  feeling  being  what  it  is,  and  no 
other— then  the  passage  of  our  feeling  must  necessarily  have 
suggested  to  us  time,  though  our  feeling  might  have  been  such, 
that  the  notion  of  space  or  of  things  in  space  should  never  have 
entered  into  our  heads.     Time  belongs  to  us  independently  of 
the  world  of  which  we  are  a  part :  space  belongs  to  us  as  o.  part 
of  it.     Of  course  the  making  for  a  moment  the  supposition  of 
time  without  space,  and  space  without  time,  is  tearing  our 
reality  asunder  into  two  absurdities :  I  have  done  it  merely  to 
exhibit  the  relation  between  the  two. 

We  begin  to  have  the  experience  of  time  (to  use  the  language 
which  I  have  used  before)  in  virtue  of  our  beginning  at  all  to 
reflect,  or  to  be  sentient  of  pleasure  or  pain,  or  to  obey  impulse. 
To  say  that  the  experience  of  time  is  our  earliest  experience,  is 
of  course  little  more  than  uttering  a  truism.  Our  experience  of 
space  comes  later  in  the  way  that  I  have  mentioned.  Cor- 
responding with  this  we  may  say  with  truth  that  our  feeling  is 
more  essential  to  us  than  our  spatial  or  phenomenal  existence. 
Spatial  or  phenomenal  is  one  of  the  things  which,  in  growing 
reflexion,  we  find  out  we  are :  we  could  not  have  been  otherwise 
than  in  time,  we  might  have  been  otherwise  than  in  space : 
space  might  not  have  been  at  all,  and  yet  we  might  have  been. 
Still  when  we  speak  of  ourselves  as  real  or  existent,  a  large 
part  of  the  significance  which  we  give  to  those  terms  is  due 
to  our  notion  of  space  or  phenomenalism,  so  that  if  space  had 
not  been,  it  is  a  very  slight  conception  that  we  can  fonn  of 
what  or  how  we  could  have  been.     But  of  this  enough. 


CHAPTER  VII. 


KNOWLEDGE   OF   ACQUAINTANCE   AND   KNOWLEDGE 

OF   JUDGMENT. 


I  HAVE  spoken  on  a  former  occasion*  on  the  two  different 
sets  of  words  which  there  are,  in  a  great  many  languages,  to 
express  what  we  call  knowledge.  And  a  few  pages  back  I  very 
slightly  referred  to  this  matter  again. 

In  all  philosophy,  this  division  has  been  more  or  less 
recognized,  and  the  two  kinds  of  knowledge  have  been  called, 
the  one  intuitive  or  immediate,  the  other  mediate,  conceptual, 
symbolic,  representative,  and  by  various  other  names.  These 
terms  have  almost  always  involved  special  theories,  and  different 
views  in  regard  to  the  nature,  application,  and  limits,  and  also 
as  to  the  mutual  relations,  of  these  two  kinds  of  knowledge.  I 
shall  not  dwell  upon  these  differences  here,  but  shall  proceed  to 
speak  of  the  two  kinds  of  knowledge,  as  they  enter  into  the  line 
of  thought  which  I  am  now  pursuing. 

The  first  I  call  knowledge  of  acquaintance,  using  this  ex- 
pression for  my  own  purposes,  instead  of  the  terms  '  intuitive '  or 
*  immediate,'  for  reasons  which  I  have  already  partly  given. 
This  is  knowledge  which,  to  use  a  homely  expression,  would  be 
immediate  if  it  could,  or  in  other  language,  is  as  immediate 
as  is  consistent  with  the  recollection,  that  the  subject  is  in 
a   sort   of  contradictory    position,    that   it  is  a  part   of  the 


Expl.  60. 


202 


KNOWLEDGE  OF  ACQUAINTANCE  AND 


[chap. 


entire  present  fact  and  yet  not  a  part  of  it.     Trueness  is  the 
transference  of  fact  into  a  different  world  or  region,  which  we 
call  thought :  and  that  portion  of  thought  is  true,  which  is  (or  is 
the  result  of)  such  transference :  our  thought  has  trueness  in 
it,  to  the  extent  to  which  it  can  be  referred  back  to  such  a 
transference,  and  no  further.     Now,  as  I  said  before,  there  is  no 
thoroughly  immediate  knowledge ;  because  we  mean  by  know- 
ledge a  portion  of  the  thought  of  a  special  or  individual  intelli- 
gence (or  of  our  consciousness,  if  we  prefer  the  expression),  and 
there  is  no  a  priori  necessity  or  guarantee  for  this  being  a  simple 
transference  of  the  fact :  not  to  say  that  it  cannot  be  so,  the  whole 
fact  comprehending  our  knowing  as  a  portion  of  itself.     Except 
so  far  as  we  have  got  this  portion  of  the  fact  into  the  knowledge, 
the  fact  is  not  complete,  and  we  cannot  tell  how  far  this  un- 
comprehended  portion  may  affect  the  whole^  which  is  what  we 
ought  to  have,  to  be  sure  of  truth.     This  is  hard  to  put  in 
words,  but  not,  I  think,  hard  to  see,  and  it  is  variously  ex- 
pressible.    It  is  the  principle,  as  it  seems  to  me,  of  Mr  Ferrier's^ 
view  of  knowledge,  that  what  we  know  is  '  our  knowledge  of  the 
object  of  knowledge.'     That  is  to  say,  that  we  cannot  get  into 
distinct  thought  the  object  of  knowledge  separated  from  the 
fact  of  our  knowing  it.     Ourself  will  get  in  the  way.     We  want 
to  have  reality,  as  it  would  be  if  there  were  no  such  thing  as 
thought  or  knowledge  in  the  world,  or  if,  having  existed  (if  we 
suppose  that  necessary)  for  the  production  of  the  reality,  they 
had  then  ceased  and  vanished.     But  yet  we  want  the  reality  to 
present  itself  to  lis :  i.e.  we  add  our  being  to  the  reality,  and 
then  the  reality  without  our  being  is  no  longer  the  complete  or 
simple  fact :  its  imprint  is  not  immediate  or  trueness. 

However,  not  to  dwell  upon  what  language  can  represent 
very  inadequately,  immediate  or  intuitive  knowledge  is  not 
properly,  and  as  we  should  first  consider  it  (though  we  do 
with  reason  come  afterwards  so  to  look  at  it  for  convenience) 
the  standing  of  us,  the  subject,  face  to  face  with  the  object,  and 
a  certain  relation  (that  of  knowledge)  existing  or  arising  between 
the  two.     What  it  expresses  properly  and  first  is  the  nearest 


VII.] 


KNOWLEDGE  OF  JUDGMENT. 


203 


point  to  which  we  can  come  towards  that  actual  immediateness 
which  is  a  supposition  only,  the  supposition  of  fact,  so  to  speak, 
passing  into  thought,  of  the  same  thing  being  at  once  fact  and 
thought  together.  This  does  not  differ  from  what  I  said 
before,  viz.  that  immediate  or  intuitive  knowledge  is  knowledge, 
with  the  smallest  amount  of  reflection  possible  consistent  with 
its  being  knowledge. 

The  word  'intuition'  is  in  many  respects  about  as  bad  a 
word  as  could  have  been  chosen  to  express  immediate  know- 
ledge, and  in  fact,  it  is  almost  the  most  confusing  word  in  all 
philosophy.  The  looking  into  a  thing  implies  a  very  high 
degree  of  attention  and  distinguishing,  and  is  thus  the  mental 
process  almost  at  the  furthest  remove  from  what  'intuition* 
is  intended  to  mean.  No  doubt '  intuition '  means  also  'looking 
on*  a  thing,  the  metaphor  simply  taken  from  sight,  and  hence 
the  Germans  use  '  anschauung '  to  correspond  with  it,  but  even 
this  metaphor  expresses  very  poorly  that  which  we  want  to 
express,  viz.  that  blending,  so  to  speak,  of  ourselves  and  our 
being  with  the  known,  that  intimate  contact  of  it  with  us  and 
of  us  with  it,  which  is  the  groundwork  of  our  confidence  in 
'intuition'  as  necessary  trueness.  Sight  is  a  good  sense  to 
typify  immediate  knowledge,  on  account  of  its  apparent  free- 
dom from  gross  or  material  intermediation  (as  much  in  the 
case  of  what  is  distant  as  of  what  is  near),  and  also  on  account 
of  the  apparent  absence  of  effort  on  our  part  in  it.  Our  eyes 
are  open,  and  in  a  moment  there  is  in  mental  contact  with  us 
a  vast  and  glorious  infinitude.  But  we  must  not  speak  of  sight 
in  this  manner  except  with  wilful  forgetfulness  of  the  manner 
in  which  it  is  analysable,  or  else  we  shall  be  merely  misled. 
We  must  not  draw  conclusions  from  our  metaphor,  or  '  intuition  * 
will  have  to  be  changed  to  '  betouchment '  and  even  that  will 
mislead  us\ 

We  have  intuitive  knowledge  all  along  what  I  have  called 
the  scale  of  knowledge ^  First  (i.e.  not  in  point  of  time,  for  all 
is  contemporaneous,  but  simply  first  for  mention,  as  most  easily 
conceived)  we  have  the  lower  or  more  sentient  sensation,  taste, 


I 


ii 


i 


4 


1  See  Expl.  ch.  iv. 


Expl.  122. 


*  Expl.  ch.  VI. 


204 


KNOWLEDGE  OF  ACQUAINTANCE  AND 


[chap. 


smell,  aflfectedness  by  colour,  and  more  generally  over  the  body, 
feeling  of  heat,  titillation,  &c.  Second,  we  have  the  higher  or 
unsentient  sensations,  the  Kantian  pure  intuition,  Dr  Whewell's 
ideas,  the  notions  of  space  and  time.  Last  we  have  the  highest 
or,  not  only  unsentient,  but  super-corporeal,  sensations  or  m- 
tuitions  of  unity,  cause,  &c. :  but  of  these  I  will  defer  to  speak 
till  I  have  spoken  of  knowledge  not  intuitive. 

Knowledge  not  intuitive  is  that  which  may  most  simply  be 
called  'conceptive'  or  'conceptual,'  knowledge  not  0/ a  thing, 
but  about  it.  I  have  called  it  in  another  place^  'bi-objectal' 
knowledge,  because  there  are  two  things  before  the  mind  in  it, 
not  one  only:  viz.  that  which  the  knowledge  is  about,  the 
logical  subject  of  it,  and  that  which  is  known  about  it,  the 
logical  predicate  or  proper  object  of  the  knowledge. 

This  knowledge  is  distinguished  from  intuitive  by  having 
for  its  main  element  reflection  instead  of  immediateness.  Both 
the  elements  enter  into  either  kind  of  knowledge — the  dis- 
tinction is  in  the  respective  amounts. 

It  is  an  error  to  suppose  that,  in  point  of  time,  intuition  comes 
first,  and  then  reflection.  This  is  an  error  akin  to  that  of  those 
who  consider  the  action  of  the  senses  an  inferior  kind  of  know- 
ledge, and  conception,  or  the  superaddition  of  ideas,  a  higher 
kind.  Knowledge  begins  when  reflection  begins,  and  no  earlier, 
for  in  immediateness  it  is  dormant.  And  reflection  and  intui- 
tion go  on  together:  the  latter  goes  on  to  the  end,  as  the 
former  had  begun  from  the  beginning.  We  might  describe 
knowledge  as  an  elaboration  of  immediateness  by  reflection, 
keeping  in  mind  that  without  such  elaboration  the  immediate- 
ness is  not  knowledge.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  not  thought 
in  general,  but  only  such  thought  as  is  thus  elaborated  from 
immediateness  which  has  in  it  trueness  or  is  knowledge. 

There  is  however  a  difference  between  the  higher  and  lower 
intuitions  in  their  relation  to  reflection :  the  former,  though 
intuitions,  and  understood  as  having  acted  as  intuitions,  as  soon 
as  we  come  at  all  to  present  them  to  ourselves  or  to  understand 
them  ;  yet, /or  this  understanding,  absorb,  as  we  may  say,  more 

»  Expl.  119. 


I'l 


VII.] 


KNOWLEDGE  OF  JUDGMENT. 


205 


reflection.  I  shall  have  probably  a  little  difficulty  in  making 
this  clear,  but  I  will  just  illustrate  it  preliminarily  in  the  follow- 
ing manner. 

There  is,  as  I  have  already  hinted,  a  good  deal  of  confusion 
in  the  manner  in  which  '  sensiveness'  (or  sensation)  is  spoken  of 
as  intuition  or  intuitive.  This  confusion  arises  from  the  wrong 
notion  of  it  as  a  separate  or  inferior  kind  of  knowledge.  We 
may  begin,  if  we  like  it,  with  supposing  the  mind  a  '  tabula 
rasa,'  and  describing  how  one  idea  after  another  takes  its  place 
upon  it.  So  far  as  we  do  this,  we  are  simply  exhibiting  as  a 
series,  for  our  convenience,  what  is  in  fact  far  otherwise :  just 
as  we  might  give  a  list,  instead  of  a  map,  of  the  places  in  a 
country,  or  as  we  might  exhibit  in  a  linear  order  a  botanical 
classification,  which,  if  we  wanted  to  exhibit  the  mutual  relations 
of  the  orders,  &c.  in  it,  would  have  to  be  exhibited  in  quite  a 
different  manner.  The  intellectual  order  of  things  is  not  serial, 
or  linear,  or  successional.  We  are  plunged  into  the  middle  of 
things,  we  are  in  the  middle  of  them  to  begin  with.  Advancing 
knowledge  is  a  pattern  coming  out^ :  whether  we  consider  this 
pattern  to  be  in  the  mind  or  in  objective  nature  does  not  in  my 
view  matter  much,  only  we  must  not  consider  it  partly  in  one 
and  partly  in  the  other. 

The  history  of  the  human  mind  divides  itself  into  two  con- 
ceivable branches:  the  one  the  history  of  its  reflection,  the 
other,  the  history,  so  far  as  such  is  possible,  of  the  state  of 
things  which  its  reflection  gradually  presents  to  it — the  state 
of  things  of  which  it  with  its  reflection  forms  a  part.  The 
history  of  the  change  of  our  mind  from  being  a  'tabula  rasa* 

^  The  name  'Sedgwick'  is  added  in  the  margin.  The  reference  no  doubt 
is  to  the  eloquent  passage  in  his  Discourse^  p.  53,  'If  the  mind  be  without 
innate  knowledge,  is  it  also  to  be  considered  as  without  innate  feelings  and 
capacities — a  piece  of  blank  paper,  the  mere  passive  recipient  of  impressions 
from  without?  The  whole  history  of  man  shows  this  hypothesis  to  be  an 
outrage  on  his  moral  nature.  Naked  he  comes  from  his  mother's  womb; 
endowed  with  limbs  and  senses  indeed,  well  fitted  to  the  material  world,  yet 
powerless  from  want  of  use:  and  as  for  knowledge  his  soul  is  one  unvaried 
blank ;  yet  has  this  blank  been  already  touched  by  a  celestial  hand,  and  when 
plunged  in  the  colours  which  surround  it,  it  takes  not  its  tinge  from  accident, 
but  design,  and  comes  forth  covered  with  a  glorious  pattern,' 


i 


f 


1 


u 


lt' 


1 

I 

I 


I 


I 


1/ 


206 


KNOWLEDGE  OF  ACQUAINTANCE   AND 


[chap. 


to  being  a  picture  covered  with  ideas,  is  the  history  of  our 
learning,  and  in  this  view  there  is  no  harm  in  thus  describing 
the  change.  By  '  learning'  we  mean  the  transition  from  want 
of  knowledge  to  possession  of  it,  and  we  may  describe  the  mind 
wanting  knowledge  as  the  unfigured  tablet,  the  mind  possessing 
it  as  the  figured  one.  But  if  we  are  to  describe  the  process  of 
our  learning  in  a  wider  view  of  its  relations  than  the  view  of 
its  being  change  from  non-possession  of  ideas  to  possession,  we 
must  view  the  matter  differently.  The  history  of  our  learning 
is  then  the  history  of  our  reflection :  and  the  transition  in  our 
mind  is  not  from  nothing  to  fulness,  but  from  confusion  to 
distinctness.  Immediateness  is  confusion  or  chaos,  which  re- 
flection begins  to  crystallize  or  organize.  And  the  intuitive 
knowledge  which  the  senses  present  to  us,  begins  not  with  one 
sensation,  so  proceeding  to  another,  and  adding  on  and  on,  but 
with  a  confusion  of  all  sensations  or  all  sensiveness :  and  in 
proportion  as  reflection  begins  to  order  this,  there  is  knowledge. 
This  primary  confusion  does  not  seem  to  me  to  deserve  the 
Kantian  name  of  '  experience,'  for  by  '  experience'  I  understand 
something  involving  attention,  order,  succession.  Still  less 
does  it  deserve  the  name  of  sensible  knowledge,  knowledge  of 
the  sense.  Intuitive  knowledge  is  the  knowledge  nearest  to 
this  confusion,  for  be  it  remembered  the  confusion  has  the  one 
great  value  of  trueness  or  freedom  from  mistake.  But  such 
unseparated  trueness  is  of  little  value ;  we  are  possessed  by  it, 
but  cannot  possess  it  or  get  hold  of  it  to  exhibit  it  even  to 
ourselves,  of  course  still  less  to  others :  it  is  the  gradual  process 
of  reflection  accompanied  with  continual  fresh  experience  or 
new  immediateness,  which  together  constitute  'our  learning,' 
that  does  this. 

It  seems  to  me  in  reference  to  the  above,  that  both  the 
Cartesian  view  of  knowledge  as  distinctification,  and  the 
Lockeian  view  of  it  as  aggregation,  have  their  truth  and  have 
their  error.  Descartes'  view,  that  the  clearness  and  distinctness 
of  ideas  to  us  are  an  infallible  evidence  of  their  trueness,  appears 
to  me,  so  far  as  it  is  correct,  to  be  the  exhibition  of  an  axiom 
or  postulate  more  simply  expressed  thus:  'False  ideas  cannot 
present  themselves  clearly  and  distinctly ' ;  which  in  the  lan- 


VII.] 


KNOWLEDGE  OF  JUDGMENT. 


207 


guage  which  I  have  used  would  be,  that  our  reflection,  in  its 
natural  course,  may  be  taken  as  a  faithful  exhibitor  or  interpreter 
of  immediateness.  The  possible  error  arising  from  Descartes's 
view  is,  lest  we  should  think  that  the  clearness  of  its  perception 
in  any  way  constitutes  the  truth  of  the  idea.  Against  the  danger 
of  this  error  Locke's  view  as  to  the  aggregation  of  our  know- 
ledge is  of  advantage,  in  so  far  as  it  sets  plainly  before  us  the 
dependence  of  trueness  on  fact :  while  on  the  other  hand,  as  I 
have  just  mentioned,  it  exhibits  the  historical  or  actual  forma- 
tion of  our  knowledge  far  less  truly  to  the  fact  than  the  view  of 
Descartes. 

I  use  the  word  'reflection'  as  the  general  word  for  the 
application  of  notice  or  attention  to  the  state  of  things  in  which 
we  are  or  find  ourselves :  it  is  not  a  very  appropriate  word,  but 
probably  no  one  word  could  be  so.  In  the  lower  part  of  the 
scale  of  knowledge  attention  is  sentient  attention,  i.e,  attention 
to  the  feeling  of  pleasure  or  pain,  as  I  have  spoken  of  it.  At 
every  moment,  from  the  first  moment  of  the  infant's  conscious- 
ness, to  the  present  moment  with  us,  there  is  an  indistinct 
variety  of  fact  present  to  body,  eyes,  ears,  nose,  and  we  in- 
distinctly know  it  to  be  present.  Say  that  we  give  our  attention 
to  something  presenting  itself  to  what  when  understood  we 
call  the  sense  of  smell,  then  there  is  sentient  attention — the 
observation  of  the  agreeableness  or  disagreeableness  of  an 
odour.  Say  we  give  our  attention  to  its  being  what  we  under- 
stand or  experience  to  be  a  part  of  us,  our  nose,  where  this 
odour  is  present  and  affects  us:  and  say,  that  our  attention 
being  upon  this  part,  the  nose,  we  in  our  impulse  to  movement 
move  our  hand  to  it  to  touch  it:  we  have  then  active  or 
volitional  sentience,  that  which,  put  in  connexion  with  notice  of 
what  is  before  our  eyes,  is  to  us  the  dawning  of  the  notion  of 
space.  Say  we  give  more  special  attention  to  something  before 
our  eyes,  a  flower  it  may  be,  and  put  out  our  hand  to  take  it 
and  move  it  and  bring  it  near  to  us,  thereby  markedly  separating 
it  from  the  rest  that  is  before  us,  as  all  that  is  before  us  is 
separated  from  ourselves:  then  we  have  the  dawning  of  the 
higher  intuitions,  as  of  unity  or  reality,  to  the  distinctification 
of  which  the  name  of  '  reflection '  is  more  properly  to  be  applied. 


I 


h 


208 


KNOWLEDGE  OF  ACQUAINTANCE,   ETC.      [CHAP.  VII. 


But  to  use  ODe  word,  I  have  used  the  term  '  reflection '  for  the 
application  of  attention  all  along  the  scale,  and  I  do  not  think 
it  will  cause  confusion. 

Intuitional  knowledge  may  be  called  '  presential,'  reflectional 
knowledge  ^absential':  not  but  that  in  the  latter  the  object 
may  be  present,  but  it  need  not  be.  I  proceed  to  describe  the 
manner  of  this  latter  or  absential  knowledge,  and  then  the 
circumstances  in  our  state  of  things  which  render  it  possible  or 
facilitate  it  for  us,  after  the  analogy  of  the  manner  in  which  the 
sensive  organs  of  our  body  render  possible  or  facilitate  to  us 
intuition. 


h 


li 
!) 


CHAPTER  VIII. 


CONCEPTION. 


We  must  now,  after  a  fashion  not  uncommon  with  Aristotle, 
take  a  new  point  of  departure. 

Reflection  is  the  application  to  immediateness  of  a  particular 
portion  of  our  activity,  which  we  will  call  thought,  the  thinking 
power,  cogitativeness.  '  Thought  *  I  shall  commonly  call  it.  I 
began  previously  with  immediateness  because  that  is  the  source 
of  *  trueness.'  Thought  as  such  is  neither  true  nor  false.  It 
may  be  either. 

Immediateness  or  intuition  is  also  what  is  fitly  considered 
first,  because  it  is  the  source  of  mental  picturing,  which  is  what 
I  shall  just  now  mean  when  I  use  the  term  imagination.  The 
words  picturing  and  imagination  have  both  of  them  reference 
to  the  eye,  but  I  mean  the  notion  to  have  reference  to  the  whole 
of  sensiveness,  to  the  mind's  ear,  the  mind's  palate,  &c.,  as  well 
as  the  mind's  eye.  When  we  seem  to  see  a  beautiful  prospect, 
when  we  think  of  a  favourite  air,  or  when  our  palate  is  affected 
by  the  remembrance  of  the  taste  of  anything  we  like,  I  use, 
now,  the  term  imagination. 

This  imagination  is  a  quasi-sensation  or  quasi-intuition. 
The  bodily  organization  is  to  some  degree  at  least  affected  in 
concurrence  with  it :  so  far  as  this  is  so,  it  is,  as  we  are  con- 
cerned with  it,  as  much  sensation  or  intuition  as  what  we 
ordinarily  call  so,  and  we  require,  to  distinguish  it  from  such, 
the  ordinary  preservatives  against  illusion,  of  which  I  shall  speak 
another  time.  Intuition,  then,  has  got  this  shadow  of  it,  this 
atmosphere  or  penumbra  about  it,  which  we  call  '  imagination.' 

M.  14 


I 


1 


li 


lU 


tti: 


h 


i. 


*• 


210 


CONCEPTION. 


[chap. 


Intuitions  or  sensations,  dwelling  in  the  mind  or  recurring,  are 

imasiiations.  ,      ,    ,  4.-^„ 

Now  we  seem  to  ourselves  to  understand  what  perception 
(this  is  perhaps  a  better  term  than  intuition  or  sensation---all 
in  the  ^esent  use,  mean  the  same)  and  imagination  are.     ihat 
is  when  we  think  of  either  of  the  notions,  there  occurs  to  us  a 
(probably  visual)  picture  :  and  if  it  is  the  notion  of  ^  perception 
we  are  upon,  we  think  of  the  objects  of  this  picture  as  before  us ; 
if  it  is  imagination,  we  think  stUl  of  the  objects  of  the  picture, 
but  of  something  else  as  before  us,  not  they. 

But  what  is  our  knowledge  as  a  wholel  for  perception,  and 
imagination  (supposing  this  latter  true  and  justified)  constitute 
but  a  small  part  of  it.  What  is  that  thought  which  is  not 
imagination,  and  of  which  the  right  portion  constitutes  the  bulk 
of  knowledge  ?    What  is  thinking  itself  ?    What  do  we  do  when 

we  think  ?  ,        ^  x 

We  may  try  to  answer  this  question  either  by  reference  to 
philosophical  literature,  or  by  endeavouring  to  observe  what 
takes  place  in  our  own  mind. 

It  is  to  be  supposed  that  what  we  find  in  the  former  arises 
from  others  before  us  having  tried  to  do  the  latter,  for  it  is  only 
on  supposition  of  this  being  so  that  it  can  have  value.  The 
different  theories  of  logic,  in  this  point  of  view,  are  so  many 
results  of  people's  intellectual  self-examination,  or  examination 
of  the  value  of  self-examination,  for  they  may  have  considered  it 
to  have  none.  I  do  not  want  to  dwell  long  on  this,  but  shall 
just  roughly  divide  philosophical  theories  on  the  subject  into 
(1)  theories  of  thought  bs  'adstance,'  (2)  theories  of  thought  as 
'  talk,'  and  (3)  theories  of  thought  as  '  conception,'  explaming  as 
I  go  on  what  I  mean  by  each. 

I  have  pretty  well  explained  on  a  former  occasion'  what 
I  mean  by  *  adstance.'  It  is  not  perhaps  quite  correct  language 
to  speak  of  thought  as  adstance,  for  a  theory  of  adstance  is 
an  effort  to  consider  knowledge,  as  much  as  possible,  without 
entering  into  the  questions,  so  perplexing,  of  the  nature  of 
thought.     By  a  view  of  knowledge  as  adstance  I  mean  what 

1  Expl  157. 


VIII.] 


conception. 


211 


some  will  best  perhaps  understand  by  its  being  called  a  straight- 
forward  realization  of  everything.     Mr  Mill's  is  such  a  view :  I 
have  dwelt  upon  it  previously,  and  will  just  describe  it  sum- 
manly  thus :    Everything  we  want  to  know  or  can  know  is 
in  nature  before  us :  we  are  spectators  only :  thinking  is  doing 
nothing,  but  being  present  at  nature,  or,  if  we  like  better  to  say 
it,  having  nature  present  to  us  (I  employ  in  this  particular 
application  the  coined  word  '  adstant,'  merely  on  account  of  the 
various  use,  and  consequent  ambiguity,  of  the  term  '  present '). 
or  at  best  thinking  (to  purpose)  is  looking  as  deep  as  we  can 
into  nature  and  as  thoroughly  as  we  can  over  it;  only  that 
in  saying  this  we  must  not  mean  by  looking  anything  hard  to 
be  understood  or  requiring  examination. 

This  is  in  many  respects  the  same  view  which  I  have  given, 
where  I  have  spoken  of  the  dependence  of  truth  on  immediate- 
ness.     But  it  is  a  view  which  is  more  summary  and  simple  than 
mine,  and  which,  on  the  other  hand,  gives  as  the  whole  problem 
what  is  in  no  respect  the  whole  of  it.     It  brings  immediateness 
by  one  summary  effort  out  of  its  original  indistinctness  into 
distinctness :   but  in  so  doing  it  spoils  the  tnieness  which  it 
values.     What   we  want  to  know  is  at  first  between  us  and 
nature,  common  ground  to  both,  and  we   mentally  construct 
what  we  then  call  nature  by  making  order  out  of  this  indistinc- 
tion.     When  we  say  that  we  are  present  to  the  universe  or  it  to 
us,  that  we  ought  to  be  a  looking-glass  to  it,  there  is  very  much 
reason  in  this,  but  the  immediateness  here  spoken  of  is  what  I 
have  called  an  abstraction.     '  We  see  things '  is  an  ultimate 
and  primary  immediateness  for  the  work  of  life  or  practice : 
things,  as  seen,  are  then  the  matter  of  consequence,  and  the 
seeing  them  is  of  no  further  consequence  than  as  the  proof  that 
they  exist.     But  this  will  not  do  for  speculation. 

However  I  will  say  no  more  about  '  adstance '  just  now,  and 
will  not  speak  about  thought  as  talk  (the  philosophic  '  nomina- 
lism ')  because  I  think  that  anything  which  I  have  to  say  about 
this  will  be  more  intelligible  afterwards. 

Let  us  say  that  thought  is  conception,  and  ask  ourselves 
what  is  conception? 

I  will  first  speak  about  the  meaning  of  conception,  then 

14—2 


^' 


i 


fii 


I' 


210 


CONCEPTION. 


[chap. 


I 


It 


if 


Intuitions  or  sensations,  dwelling  in  the  mind  or  recurring,  are 

imaemiations.  ,     ,  .. 

Now  we  seem  to  ourselves  to  understand  what  perception 
(this  is  perhaps  a  better  term  than  intuition  or  sensation-all 
in  the  present  use,  mean  the  same)  and  imagination  are.     ihat 
is  when  we  think  of  either  of  the  notions,  there  occurs  to  us  a 
(probably  visual)  picture  :  and  if  it  is  the  notion  of '  perception 
we  are  upon,  we  think  of  the  objects  of  this  picture  as  before  us ; 
if  it  is  imagination,  we  think  still  of  the  objects  of  the  picture, 
but  of  something  else  as  before  i^s,  not  they. 

But  what  is  our  knowledge  as  a  whole'i  for  perception,  and 
imagination  (supposing  this  latter  true  and  justified)  constitute 
but  a  small  part  of  it.  What  is  that  thought  which  is  not 
imagination,  and  of  which  the  right  portion  constitutes  the  bulk 
of  knowledge  ?    What  is  thinking  itself  ?    What  do  we  do  when 

we  think  ?  ,        i.  x 

We  may  try  to  answer  this  question  either  by  reference  to 
philosophical  literature,  or  by  endeavouring  to  observe  what 
takes  place  in  our  own  mind. 

It  is  to  be  supposed  that  what  we  find  in  the  former  arises 
from  others  before  us  having  tried  to  do  the  latter  for  it  is  ouly 
on  supposition  of  this  being  so  that  it  can  have  value.  The 
different  theories  of  logic,  in  this  point  of  view,  are  so  many 
results  of  people's  intellectual  self-examination,  or  examination 
of  the  value  of  self-examination,  for  they  may  have  considered  it 
to  have  none.  I  do  not  want  to  dwell  long  on  this,  but  shall 
just  roughly  divide  philosophical  theories  on  the  subject  into 
(1)  theories  of  thought  as  ^adstance,'  (2)  theories  of  thought  as 
*  talk,'  and  (3)  theories  of  thought  as  '  conception,'  explaming  as 
I  go  on  what  I  mean  by  each.  ^ 

I  have  pretty  well  explained  on  a  former  occasion  what 
I  mean  by  '  adstance.'  It  is  not  perhaps  quite  correct  language 
to  speak  of  thought  as  adstance,  for  a  theory  of  adstance  is 
an  effort  to  consider  knowledge,  as  much  as  possible,  without 
entering  into  the  questions,  so  perplexing,  of  the  nature  of 
thought.     By  a  view  of  knowledge  as  adstance  I  mean  what 

1  Expl.  157. 


I 


VIII.] 


conception. 


211 


some  will  best  perhaps  understand  by  its  being  called  a  straight- 
forward realization  of  everything.     Mr  Mill's  is  such  a  view :  I 
have  dwelt  upon  it  previously,  and  will  just  describe  it  sum- 
manly  thus :    Everything  we  want  to  know  or   can  know  is 
m  nature  before  us :  we  are  spectators  only :  thinking  is  doing 
nothing,  but  being  present  at  nature,  or,  if  we  like  better  to  say 
It,  having  nature  present  to  us  (I  employ  in  this  particular 
application  the  coined  word  'adstant,'  merely  on  account  of  the 
various  use,  and  consequent  ambiguity,  of  the  term  '  present '), 
or  at  best  thinking  (to  purpose)  is  looking  as  deep  as  we  can 
into  nature  and  as  thoroughly  as  we  can  over  it;  only  that 
m  saying  this  we  must  not  mean  by  looking  anything  hard  to 
be  understood  or  requiring  examination. 

This  is  in  many  respects  the  same  view  which  I  have  given, 
where  I  have  spoken  of  the  dependence  of  truth  on  immediate- 
ness.     But  it  is  a  view  which  is  more  summary  and  simple  than 
mine,  and  which,  on  the  other  hand,  gives  as  the  whole  problem 
what  is  in  no  respect  the  whole  of  it.     It  brings  immediateness 
by  one  summary  effort  out  of  its  original  indistinctness  into 
distinctness :   but  in  so  doing  it  spoils  the  tmeness  which  it 
values.     What   we  want  to  know  is  at  first  between  us  and 
nature,  common  ground  to  both,  and  we   mentally  construct 
what  we  then  call  nature  by  making  order  out  of  this  indistinc- 
tion.     When  we  say  that  we  are  present  to  the  universe  or  it  to 
us,  that  we  ought  to  be  a  looking-glass  to  it,  there  is  very  much 
reason  in  this,  but  the  immediateness  here  spoken  of  is  what  I 
have  called  an  abstraction.     *We  see  things'  is  an  ultimate 
and  primary  immediateness  for  the  work  of  life  or  practice  : 
things,  as  seen,  are  then  the  matter  of  consequence,  and  the 
seeing  them  is  of  no  further  consequence  than  as  the  proof  that 
they  exist.     But  this  will  not  do  for  speculation. 

However  I  will  say  no  more  about  '  adstance '  just  now,  and 
will  not  speak  about  thought  as  talk  (the  philosophic  '  nomina- 
lism ')  because  I  think  that  anything  which  I  have  to  say  about 
this  will  be  more  intelligible  afterwards. 

Let  us  say  that  thought  is  conception,  and  ask  ourselves 
what  is  conception? 

I  will  first  speak  about  the  meaning  of  conception,  then 

14—2 


'  '   ': 


i 


212 


CONCEPTION. 


[chap. 


I 


about  the  manner  of  it,  then  about  the  objects  of  it,  then  about 
the  progress  of  it. 

To  begin  with  the  meaning,  which  however  will  more  fully 
appear  as  we  go  on :  to  conceive  anything  is  to  begin  ^  to  have  a 
thought  or  feeling,  for  which  thought  or  feeling,  (or  in  connexion 
with  it)  we  use  the  name  expressing  what  we  are  said  to 
conceive.  *  To  conceive  a  lion,'  is  to  begin  to  have  the  thought 
in  connexion  with  which  we  use  the  name  '  lion.'  But  what 
sort  of  thing  is  this  thought? 

Here  we  come  to  the  manner  of  conception.  But  it  is  to 
be  observed  that  we  have  already  begun  to  speak  of  one  thing 
which,  before  proceeding  with  the  manner  of  conception,  I  must 
speak  of  more  fully :  this  is  '  language,'  or  to  go  rather  deeper 
than  language,  society,  and  what  I  will  call '  co-intelligence.' 

The  state  of  things  in  which  we  find  ourselves  has  an 
element  in  it  different  from  anything  that  is  in  the  individual 
immediateness  of  which  I  spoke  before.  This  element  is 
'society,'  or  our  being  associated  with  other  beings  like  our- 
selves, other  intelligences. 

There  is  nothing,  in  my  view,  which  contributes  more  to 
what  I  should  call  the  unreality  and  inapplicability  of  much 
of  the  *  Philosophy  of  the  Human  Mind,'  than  its  non-attention 
to  the  fundamentalnesSy  in  regard  of  our  intelligence,  of  society 
and  mutual  communication,  and  the  wrong  views  of  language 
which  go  with  this  non-attention. 

Were  we  solitary  beings  in  the  universe,  immediateness 
would  be  in  its  nature  the  same.  We  should  or  we  might 
have  our  eyes  and  ears  open,  and  fact  and  we  would  meet  each 
other  as  well  in  solitude  as  in  company.  Nor  would  there, 
perhaps,  be  wanting  some  impulses  to  reflection,  or  to  the 
vivifying,  by  our  intelligence,  of  this  meeting  of  us  and  fact. 
But  the  great  impulse  to  reflection  would  be  wanting,  namely 
the  impulse  to  communication.  Intelligence  is  really  co-in- 
telligence, I  have  described  reflection,  or  active  and  living 
intelligence,  as  beginning  with  the  double  process  of  self- 
consciousness  and  perception,  each  setting  ofif  the  other.     As 


>  Cf.  above  p.  28. 


VIII.] 


conception. 


213 


self-consciousness  is  self-wards  or  concentrated,  so  perception 
is  self-from-wards  or  expansive,  and  it  is  this  dmibly,  which  is 
the  important  point  to  observe;  we  generalize  in  it  not  only 
the  object  of  knowledge,  but  the  subject.     We  come  not  only 
to  know  something  widely  expanding  beyond  ourselves,  but  to 
know  it  with  a  knowledge  felt  as  something  more  than  indi- 
vidual, something  not  limited  to  ourselves.     In  fact  we  have 
here  another  of  our  primary  experiences,  which  places  us  not 
only  in  an  universe  of  things  to  be  known,  but  in  an  universe 
of  fellow-knowers.      The   universe   of  what   is   to   be  known 
surrounds  not  only  us,  but  a  number  of  intelligences  like  us: 
and  our  knowing  has  the  second  character  of  being  not  only 
a  mirroring  of  the  universe  or  of  fact,  but  of  being  a  sympathy 
with  other  intelligences.      There   is   a   large   portion  of  our 
thought,  in  regard  of  which  its  being  individual  or  peculiar 
to  ourselves  is  its  being  wrong :  and  thus  we  arrive  at  a  second 
criterion  of  trueness,  besides  the  derivation  from   individual 
immediateness.     Thought,  if  it  is  to  be  true,  must  be  not  only 
derived  from  fact,  but  must  satisfy,  or  be  good  thought  for, 
other  intelligences  as  well  as  our  own. 

This  principle,  as  we  come  to  understand  thought,  we 
consider  to  be  true  in  the  highest  generality,  when  we  talk 
of  intelligences  in  the  plural  or  of  particular  intelligences :  and 
it  is  upon  this  principle  that  those  philosophers  have  gone,  who 
have  considered  truth  to  be  the  coincidence  of  our  thought 
with  the  thought  of  God,  or  its  obedience  to  it,  or  in  some 
similar  manner.  Less  generally  than  this,  one  manner  of  our 
waking  to  phenomenalism,  or  to  the  actual  universe  in  which 
we  live,  is  our  finding  ourselves  in  the  society  of  other  intelli- 
gences, and  impelled  to  communication  with  them ;  so  that  our 
thought,  which  might  otherwise  have  rested  in  the  inertia  or 
inactivity  of  immediateness,  is  impelled  to  shape  itself  into 
what  we  may  call  a  transferable  shape,  and  to  take  a  guise 
which  can  meet  the  thought  of  others. 

Thought  and  trueness  would  have  been  different  for  us  from 
what  they  are,  in  a  manner  to  us  inconceivable,  if  we  had  been 
the  solitary  intelligences  in  the  universe:  our  thought  would 
have  been  different  from  what  it  is,  in  a  manner  scarcely  naore 


1. 


I 


■itiii 


., 


I» 


214 


CONCEPTION. 


[chap. 


conceivable,  if  men  had  been  dumb  or  deaf.  As  it  is,  it  may  be 
said  that  the  whole  mass  of  human  thought  and  language, 
which,  in  regard  of  the  trueness  derivable  from  individual 
immediateness,  rests  upon  sight  corrected  by  touch  and  move- 
ment— I  use  this  as  a  short  expression,  having  dwelt  upon 
the  subject  at  length  in  another  place ^ — rests,  in  regard  of 
the  trueness  derivable  from  co-intelligence,  upon  the  tongue 
and  ear,  i.e.  upon  the  double  capacity,  or  two  corresponding 
capacities,  of  the  creation  of  an  universe  of  sound  (corresponding 
to  the  universe  of  perception  as  this  latter  is  thought)  and  of 
the  perception  of  this  second  or  representative  universe  by 
the  ear.  Significant  sound  of  this  kind,  is,  if  I  may  use  the 
expression,  a  second  picturing  or  representation  of  fs,ct,  following 
(in  regard  of  truth  of  immediateness)  the  visual  picturing  or 
imagination,  and  with  the  vast  advantage  of  being  so  essentially 
different  from  this  as  not  to  be  possibly  confounded  with  it : 
but  having  also  the  advantage,  which  the  visual  imagination  has 
not,  of  ready  transference  from  mind  to  mind,  of  being  thus  the 
organ  or  instrument  of  co-intelligence,  and  what  makes  possible 
the  trueness  which  depends  upon  this. 

In  the  phenomenalist  existence  then,  in  which  we  find 
ourselves,  and  as  a  fact  of  ity  conception  is  as  closely  connected 
with  the  tongue  and  ear,  or  with  language,  as  imagination  is 
with  sight.  It  is  a  part  of  our  nature,  as  beings  possessed  of 
sight,  that  we  represent  the  immediateness  of  fact  to  us  visually 
so  far  as  we  can :  it  is  a  part  of  our  nature,  as  beings  having 
what  we  now  call  language,  that  we  represent  that  portion  of 
fact  which  is  not  capable  of  visual  representation,  by  means 
of  language — as  I  should  call  it,  by  noem  and  phone* — and  that 
we  are  able  thus  to  apply  to  it  that  notion  of  trueness  which 
belongs  to  mutual  communication. 

This  man-made  universe,  or  rather  these  universes,  of 
significant  sound  (for  every  separate  language  is  a  separate 
universe,  to  the  extent  which  I  shall  in  a  moment  describe)  are 


1  Expl.  39  foil. 

^  That  is,  by  signification  and  sound.  These  terms  are  explained  in  the 
jEinthor's  Treatise  on  Glossology,  of  which  the  earlier  chapters  are  printed  in  the 
Journal  of  Philology,  nos.  7,  8,  10. 


ft 


i 


VIII.] 


CONCEPTION. 


215 


something  without  which  we  could  not  think  to  any  purpose  : 
and  they  are  something  which  we  should  not  and  could  not 
construct,  unless  we  were  beings  of  society,  i.e.  both  living  in 
it,  and  with   inward  and  outward  organization  for  living  in 
it.     A  language  is  a  picture  of  the  universe  which  has  two 
characters,  one  of  which  resembles,  and  the  other  does  not 
resemble,  the  visual  picture  of  the  universe  which  we  carry 
about  each  one  more  or  less  in  our  imagination,  and  which 
in  fact  is  our  universe.     A  language  is  composed  of  sounds,  and 
these,  as  sounds,  are,  except  a  small  and  particular  portion  of 
them,  arbitrary:   there  is  no  occasion  why  they,  rather  than 
other  sounds,  should  represent  what  they  do  represent.     As 
sound  therefore,  speaking  generally,  the  universe  of  words  is  an 
entirely  arbitrary  representation   of  the   universe  of  fact  or 
reality.     Berkeley  considered  the  universe  of  sight  and  visual 
imagination  to  be  a  similar  arbitrary  representation:  I  have 
stated  above  why  I  dissent  from  him,  and  why  I  consider  the 
universe   of  language   and  the  universe  of  sight   to  be  not 
kindred   manners   of  representation.      But   there  is    another 
character  of  language  in  which  it  is  in  a  certain,  though  partial, 
degree    akin    to   the   visual   picture,   which   is   the  point   of 
consequence  to  us  now  about  it.     If  two  people  are  talking 
together,  commenting,  we  will  say,  on  what  we  call  a  prospect 
before  them,  we  may  be  certain  that  there  is  to  some  extent 
co-intelligence :  to  what  extent  is  not  of  consequence :  we  are 
certain  that  upon  the  whole  the  visual  picture  before  the  one 
is  the  same  as  that  before   the   other.     Suppose   them   now 
talking  without  any  prospect  before  them,  or  any  thought  of 
one,  but  we  will  say  on  some  abstract  subject:   and  let  us 
suppose  them  talking  one  in  one  language  and  the  other  in 
another.     If  I,  understanding  French  to  the  extent  to  which  I 
do,  were  talking  with  a  Frenchman  who  understood  English  to 
the  same  extent,  it  might  be  the  most  convenient  proceeding 
for  each  to  talk  his  own  language,  and  there  might  be  the  most 
perfect  co-intelligence  or  mutual  understanding.     Now  what  is 
the  vehicle  or  instrument  of  this  mutual  understanding  ?    In 
what  does  the  co-intelligence  consist  ?     What  is  it  that  is  in 
common  to  the  two  minds,  that  is  in  one  as  well  as  in  the 


i 


I 


& 


'    » 


r' 


'  i 


1 


216 


CONCEPTION. 


[chap. 


other,  for  '  mutual '  or  '  common  *  understanding  (we  may  call  it 
either  or  both)  to  have  any  significance  ?  In  the  former  case, 
it  was  the  visual  picture :  here,  if  we  were  talking  the  same 
language,  it  might  possibly  be  the  sound,  a  community  of 
ear-picture  like  the  former  community  of  eye-picture.  But  in 
the  case  supposed  there  is  no  such  single  picture :  we  have 
each  before  our  mind,  so  to  speak,  a  double  ear-picture,  two 
corresponding  portions  of  two-sound-universes :  and  these  must 
correspond,  or  be  (me  piece  of  thought  to  us,  which  they  are,  in 
virtue  of  something  beyond  the  sound:  there  are  two  sounds 
going  to  one — what  are  we  to  call  it  ? 

It  is  in  fact  the  'meaning,*  and  the  second  character  of 
words  is,  I  will  not  say  to  have  meanings  (unless  I  am  prepared 
on  the  other  hand  to  talk  of  them  as  having  sounds)  but  to  be 
meanings  as  well  as  sounds.  The  word  is  thought  as  well  as 
spoken :  as  thought,  it  is  meaning,  just  as  spoken,  it  is  sound. 
And  words,  as  meanings,  are  akin  to  the  visual  picture,  though, 
as  sounds,  they  are  not.  That  is,  their  connexion,  as  meanings, 
with  the  reality  or  fact  which  corresponds  with  them,  is  not 
arbitrary,  in  the  manner  in  which  their  connexion  with  it,  as 
sounds,  is. 

It  seems  to  me  that  all  those,  from  the  scholastic  Nominalists, 
and  even  from  Plato  in  the  Cratylus,  down  to.  Mr  Mill,  who  have 
discussed  words  and  names  and  their  relation  to  thought,  have 
not  quite  sufficiently  set  before  them  what  they  meant  by  the 
language  they  used.  For  there  is  still  a  third  character  of 
words,  which  I  may  as  well  at  once  mention,  because,  though 
subsidiary  to  the  other  two,  which  are  essential,  it  is  still  very 
important.     This  is  the  word  as  written  or  printed. 

In  the  greater  portion  of  human  language  writing  is  simply 
a  sign,  or  conventional  exhibition  to  sight,  of  the  word  as 
sounded,  or,  more  correctly,  of  the  several  sounds,  in  combina- 
tion, which  are  elements  of  this.  But  though  thus  the  written 
word  is,  for  the  largest  portion  of  language,  the  word  only  at 
second-hand,  I  am  inclined  to  think,  from  the  language  of  most 
nominalists  and  those  in  general  who  have  treated,  in  application 
to  philosophy,  of  names  of  things,  that  this  is  what  has  been 
uppermost  in  their  thoughts.     And  there  is  very  considerable 


r 


VIII.] 


conception. 


217 


reason,  in  the  way  which  we  shall  see  shortly,  why  it  should 
be.  When  words  are  considered,  in  regard  of  our  use  of  them 
m  thought,  to  have  a  resemblance  to  algebraic  signs,  it  seems 
clear  that  it  is  this,  the  written  word,  which  is  intended :  and 
in  general  there  is  a  probability,  that  it  is  so,  when  words  are 
spoken  of  as  signs  of  things. 

The  question  before  us  now  is.  What  is  the  mental  object  of 
that  portion  of  thought  which  is  not  imaginational  or  visually 
pictorial :  what  is  that  we  have  in  our  minds  when  we  say  we 
are  thinking  of  something,  and  yet,  from  the  nature  of  the 
thing,  it  is  something  which  we  cannot  picture  to  ourselves? 
This  is  the  same  as  the  question  given  before  in  this  form, 
'  What  do  we  do  when  we  think  ?  what  goes  on  in  us  ?  what  is 
thinking,  so  far  as  it  is  distinct  from  mind-painting  ? ' 

This  again  is  the  same  as  the  question.  What  is  a  word,  as 
*  meaning'?  The  word  as  'sound'  is  the  result  of  oui-  4ill 
moving^  the  tongue  and  producing  an  effect  which  extends  to 
another's  ear :  this  sound,  again,  may  have  reference  to  certain 
things  which  we  see,  and  he  sees  also,  to  our  common  visual 
picture  at  the  time ;  but  the  word,  as  '  meaning,'  is  or  ought  to 
be  something  distinct  and  definite,  in  regard  of  which  it  is  not 
enough  to  tell  us  what  it  is  about,  or  that  sound  is  the  means 
of  commTmicating  it :  what  is  the  meaning  of  meaning  ? 

But  though  I  have  thus  recalled  to  our  remembrance  the 
question  before  us  that  we  may  not  forget  it,'  there  is  still 
something  else  to  be  considered  in  connexion  with  it  before  we 
can  fairly  meet  itself. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  I  have  from  time  to  time 
referred  to  what  I  have  called  the  'higher  intuitions.'  By 
these  I  mean  simply  those  which  would  come  in  the  higher  or 
highest  portion  of  what  I  have  called  the  scale  of  sensation  or 
knowledge. 

There  are  two  great  intuitions  in  this  part  of  the  scale, 
which,  for  importance,  bear  a  sort  of  analogy  to  time  and  space 
below  them;  these  are  what  I  will  call  'unity'  and  'gene- 
ricity  \'     By  the  word  '  intuition '  I  mean  here  simply  the  dawn 

1  Expl.  106. 


ill 


t 


i 


218 


CONCEPTION. 


[chap. 


I 


of  immediateness  towards  reflection  and  distinctness :  unity  and 
genericity  awake  in  us,  as  existing  portions  of  fact  coming  to 
our  notice,  just  as  smell  and  colour  do,  or  as  time  and  space. 
I  do  not  use  the  term  for  the  purpose  of  making  any  assertion, 
which  is  not  to  be  questioned,  about  them;  for  though,  or 
rather  because,  I  consider  intuition  the  ground  of  all  knowledge, 
I  have  disclaimed  the  language  *  intuitive  knowledge*  as  it  is 
often  used;  we  must  plead  something  besides  intuition  on 
behalf  of  everything  that  we  assert  to  be  knowledge.  Intuition 
may  suggest  the  line  of  thought :  we  may  be  satisfied  from 
intuition  that  there  is  something  there  to  be  known,  some 
trueness:  yet  the  giving  to  anything  that  distinctness  and 
clearness  which  is  necessary  to  make  it  knowledge,  the  singling 
out  and  particularizing  the  notions  which  go  to  the  knowledge 
— all  this  is  no  part  of  intuition,  but  of  elaborate  reflection 
digesting  it.  And  so,  in  calling  '  unity '  and  *  genericity  *  in- 
tuitions, I  do  not  in  the  least  mean  to  assert  *  These  are  exactly 
the  notions  which  exist,  and  they  certainly  do  exist,  I  know  it 
by  intuition/  All  that  I  assert  is  that  we  do  think  of  things  as 
units  or  individuals,  and  again  as  belonging  to  kinds  or  species. 
This  is  a  fact  as  undoubted  as  that  we  smell  or  taste  them: 
and  since  immediateness  or  intuition  is,  in  my  view,  the  basis 
of  all  truth  or  fact,  anything  which  is  added  afterwards  beyond 
attention  or  notice,  being  not  true,  not  fact; — it  follows  that 
there  must  be  something  in  immediateness  or  immediate  fact 
which  answers  to  this  our  thinking  of  things  in  units  and 
genera.  This  something,  whatever  it  is,  is  what  I  mean  by  the 
intuitions  of  unity  and  genericity. 

These  higher  intuitions  are,  indeed,  as  I  have  noticed, 
rather  more  difficult  to  deal  with  than  the  lower  ones,  because 
reflection  plays  a  more  apparently  important  part  in  regard  to 
them.  We  make  our  philosophical  speculation  with  our 
developed  intelligence,  that  is,  with  our  attention  giving  itself 
to  our  sensive  perception  of  the  phenomenal  universe  so 
naturally  and  habitually,  that  we  are  scarcely  aware  any 
attention  is  given  at  all,  or  that,  in  all  this  which  seems  so 
concrete  and  immediate,  there  is  anything  abstract  and  reflec- 
tional.     The  notions  of  unity  and  genericity  become  absorbed, 


VIII.] 


CONCEPTION. 


219 


80  to  call  it,  in  our  sensiveness:  and  when  we  say,  I  smell 
a  rose,  we  call  it  a  simple  intuition  or  sensation  of  smell,  with- 
out considering  that  our  words  have  no  significance  except 
so  far  as,  concurrently  with  our  smelling,  we  isolate  a  certain 
red  thing  in  our  thoughts  from  the  rest  of  the  visual  picture 
before  our  imagination,  and  think  of  this  red  thing  in  some  way 
beyond  imagination,  the  way  which  we  have  now  got  to  find 
out,  which  is  the  meaning  of  calling  it  generically  a  rose.  Owing 
to  this  absorption  of  unity  and  genericity  in  sensiveness,  we  seem 
to  have  to  make  more  use  of  reflection  and  attention  in  regard 
of  them  than  we  have  in  regard  of  those  lower  intuitions.  And 
hence  it  has  been  thought  by  many  philosophers  that  we 
actually  do  this,  and  that  unity  and  genericity,  with  other 
notions  of  a  like  kind,  are  something  added  by  the  mind, 
expressly  and  volitionally,  to  the  simple  sensiveness,— that  they 
are  thoughts  of  the  understanding  applied  to  experience.  This 
will  be  recognized  as  a  portion  of  that  which  I  throughout 
protest  against,  the  division  of  knowledge  between  nature  and 
us.  To  me,  the  unity  and  genericity  of  a  rose  are  qualities  of 
itself  as  much  as  its  smell :  or  if  we  use  the  reverse  language, 
its  smell  is  as  much  a  feeling  or  thought  of  ours  about  it  as  its 
unity  or  genericity. 

Whatever  is  true,  exists,  germinally  at  least,  in  immediate- 
ness, and  is  noticed  or  brought  out  to  be  knowledge  by  volitional 
reflection.  Owing  to  what  I  have  just  mentioned,  the  higher 
intuitions,  as  I  call  them,  take  more  reflection  to  themselves  to 
bring  them  out  and  distinctify  them :  but  they  are  intuitions. 

The  intuition  of  unity  is,  I  think,  associated  with  our 
self-consciousness,  and  is  an  application  to  perception  of  so 
much  of  that  as  is  capable  of  such  application.  It  is  a  pro- 
jection of  ourselves  upon  portions  of  the  universe  in  which  we 
find  ourselves^  Why  do  we  break  up  this  universe,  which,  as 
a  matter  simply  of  sentience  and  measurement,  is  one  con- 
tinuous complicated  whole  before  us,  into  separate,  mutually 
isolated  things  ?  It  is  here  that  the  language  of  the  wrong 
psychology,  on  which  I  have  at  various  times  commented,  has 


\ 


1  Expl.  48  foU. 


220 


CONCEPTION. 


[chap. 


VIII.] 


CONCEPTION. 


221 


been  so  fatal  to  all  sound  thought.  I  have  described  elsewhere 
what  is  the  real  state  of  fact  which  is  described  in  such 
misleading  language  as  'The  thing,  of  course,  is  clear  to 
everybody — why,  the  tree  makes  an  impression  on  our  eye — a 
stone  lies  before  me,  of  course  I  see  it.'  But  while  blaming  the 
mis-psychological  language,  I  am  desirous  to  admit  its  truth  to 
fact  in  one  point  of  view,  i.e.  as  against  those  who  would  split 
up  our  knowledge,  as  though  it  consisted  in  the  addition  of 
something  from  the  mind  to  something  given  by  the  sense. 

*  The  tree  makes  an  impression  upon  us!  if  anyone  likes  to  use 
that  language :  and  the  language, '  the  tree  makes  an  impression 
on  the  eye*  is  nearer  perhaps  to  this  than  such  language  as, 

*  the  eye  as  sense  sees  the  tree,  and  the  mind  tells  us  what  it 
is.'  In  the  complicated  whole  at  any  moment  before  us,  there 
is  reason  (whatever  that  reason  at  the  particular  time  may  be) 
why  a  portion  should  isolate  itself  from  the  rest  and  present 
itself  to  us,  as,  we  will  say,  a  tree.  If  it  does  so,  it  presents 
itself  to  us  in  all  its  characters  together,  as  one^  as  of  the  kind 

*  tree,'  as  of  such  and  such  a  shape  and  magnitude,  as  of  such 
and  such  a  colour,  in  a  manner  corresponding  to  the  whole 
scale  of  our  intuitions.  It  presents  itself  to  the  whole  of  us,  to 
our  intelligence,  of  which  one  character  is  to  be  sensive,  not  to 
our  eye  with  any  significance  in  the  expression,  since  all  sorts 
of  things  besides  the  tree  are  printed  on  the  retina,  if  that  is 
what  the  eye  is  to  mean  here.  The  point  here  against  the 
mis-psychology  is,  that  the  philosophical  fact  on  which  all 
rests — the  immediateness,  as  I  call  it — is  not  the  existence  of 
the  tree  (which  is  what  the  perception,  to  suppose  any  meaning 
in  the  expression,  must  be  considered  first  to  suggest  to  us,  and 
which  it  is  therefore  absurd  to  describe  beforehand  as  the  cause 
of  the  perception),  but  what  I  have  vaguely  described  (for  of 
course  it  can  be  described  in  no  other  manner)  as,  there  being 
reason,  under  the  particular  circumstances  at  that  moment, 
why  there  should  be  to  us  this  particular  presentation,  which 
we  describe  as  the  tree  making  an  impression  upon  us. 

That  which  is  thus  vaguely  described  as  *  there  being  reason 
why  the  thing  should  be  as  it  is,'  which  is  what  I  mean  by  the 
immediateness,  is  described,  in  the  expression  above,  from  the 


objective  side:  it  might  be  equally  well  described  from  the 
other :  we  might  say  '  I  see  the  tree '  just  as  significantly  as 
'the  tree  makes  an  impression  on  me.'  As  to  the  relation 
between  ourself  and  our  sensive  organs,  we  must  proceed 
exactly  in  the  same  way  from  this  side  as  from  the  other.  If 
we  talk  of  the  eye  seeing,  we  must  talk,  with  such  significance 
as  we  may,  of  its  seeing  light,  colours,  &c. :  it  is  we,  by  means  of 
the  eye,  that  see  the  tree,  and  see  it,  just  as  we  did  from  the 
opposite  side,  as  one,  as  of  a  kind,  as  of  such  and  such  a  shape, 
as  of  such  and  such  a  colour.  Its  unity  and  genericity  are 
intuitions,  just  as  its  shape  and  colour  are. 

When  I  have  said,  as  I  have  said  all   along,  that   it   is 
reflection  that  distinctifies  or,  as  I  might  have  said,  isolates 
and  unifies,  it  might  have  been  more  correct  to  say  that  the 
prime  operation  and  act  of  attention  is  to  notice — we  must  not 
say  the  distinctions,  and  unities,  which  exist  in  immediateness, 
for  no  such  do  exist,  but — the  reason  which  exists  for  them,  the 
germ  of  them.     Otherwise  reflection  would  be  adding  some- 
thing new  to  immediateness,  and  if  it  did,  this  which  is  added 
would  be  false,  not  true  to  fact.     We  must  not  consider  this 
thinking  by  us   of  things   as  units  and  in  kinds,  a  way  of 
thinking  of  ours  about  the  universe,  which  in  that  case  must  be 
supposed,  as  universe,  independent  of  this  way  of  thinking. 
The  reason  why  we  think  in  this  way  may  be  in  ourselves,  if 
so  we  like  to  express  ourselves  (for  I  think  that  this  comes  only 
to  a  matter  of  expression);  but  if  so,  the  reason  of  all  our 
thought  and  knowledge  is  in  ourselves,  for  there  is  no  principle 
upon  which  we  can  go  in  dividing  it.     Or  on  the  other  hand 
the  reason  for  all  our  thought  (this  amongst  it)  being  what  it 
is,  may  be  in  the  object,  if  we  use  such  language.     I  do  not 
judge  this  matter  either  way,  because  I  do  not  think  we  can 
go  further  than  what  I  have  called  immediateness,  viz.  the 
existence  of  fact,  which  is  the  reason  for  that  taking  place 
which  we  find  to  take  place.     I  do  not  think  there  is  meaning 
in  discussing  whether  this  fact  or  reason  is  in  ourselves  or  out 
of  ourselves :  it  is  previous  to  the  consideration  of  either.     It  is 
this  fact  or  reason  which  suggests  to  us  the  distinction  between 
ourselves  and  what  is  not  ourselves  :  ourselves  and  what  is  not 


t 


1 1 


222 


CONCEPTION. 


[chap. 

ourselves,  so  far  as  they  are  to  be  thought  of  in  connexion  with 
it,  are  blended  together  in  it. 

It  does  not  seem  to  me  that  the  notion  of  unity  can  be 
described,  any  more  than  those  of  time  and  space.  If  we  are 
to  try  to  do  so,  I  should  describe  it  as  '  reason  for  distinction.' 

Distinction,  as  I  have  said,  is  what  reflection  makes :  i.e.  it 
notices  (or  we  notice  in  it)  the  intuition,  'reason  for  distinction,' 
and  distinguishes  accordingly.     The  first  great  objective  unity 
is  the  universe  itself,  distinguished  ofif  from  ourselves.     Putting 
it  the  other  way,  we  might  say,  '  The  first  thing  which  '—how 
shall  we  describe  it  ? — *  is  ready  to  present  itself  so  far  as  there 
is  any  intelligence  for  it  to  present  itself  to,'  as  a  part  of  the 
primary  fact  or  immediateness,  is  thought  on  our  part,  with 
something  not  ourselves  for  the  object  of  it.     In  the  course  of 
those  our  first  experiences,  the  universe,  or  a  part  of  it,  becomes 
distinctified  to  us  as  phenomenal  or  spatial,  and  as  a  unity  in 
this  respect,  that  we  come  to  think  of  it  as  a  vast  local  and 
(what  we  call)  corporeal  system,  of  which  we  are  ourselves  a 
portion.     It  is  the  supposition  of  there  being  reason  in  fact  for 
our  thinking  thus,  which  makes  us  describe  our  thinking  thus 
as  experience,  something  we  find,  not  imagination,  something 
we  dream.     When  we  come  to  philosophize,  we  may  speculate 
about  these  our  early  experiences  in  various  ways :  as  whether 
our  reflection  really  interprets  rightly  the  reason  for  them  or 
basis  of  them,  supposing  that   there  is  such.     The  error  of 
Sir  W.  Hamilton  and  the  Natural  Realists  seems  to  me  to  be 
the  exhibiting  as  the  fact  which  gives  or  has  given  reason  for 
our  thought,  that  which  our   developed   thought   apparently 
presents  to  us  as  the  universe :   this  is  in  fact  part  of  the 
general  mis-psychological  error.     I  say  'apparently  presents,' 
because  if  we  are  to  come  to  describe  in  notions  and  words  how 
the  universe  as  a  whole  presents  itself  to  us, — what  we  mean, 

or  what  men  in  general  mean,  by  its  existence  and  its  reality, 

we  find  that  we  can  no  more  do  so  than  we  can  describe  the 
original  supposed  fact,  which  gives  reason  of  our  thought  to  the 
philosopher  who  is  not  a  Natural  Realist.  The  reason  of  this 
however  will  come  more  fitly  another  time. 

On  the  distinctification  from  ourselves  of  the  spatial  universe 


VIII.] 


CONCEPTION. 


223 


follows  the  distinctification  of  the  various  things  which,  like 
ourselves,  are  recognized  as  in  it :  and  it  is  because  they  are 
recognized  as  being,  as  in  it,  like  ourselves,  that  the  distincti- 
fication of  them  is  in  various  ways  connected  with  self-conscious- 
ness. The  distinctification  of  them  is  the  higher  portion  of 
perception,  as  sensiveness  is  the  lower.  But  this  distinctification, 
as  taking  place  in  perception,  is  connected  constantly  with 
another  notion,  different  from  what  I  have  as  yet  called  '  unity,' 
though  closely  related  with  it.  And  I  will  leave  '  unity '  now 
in  hope  to  return  to  it  in  detail. 

'Genericity,'  or  the  existence  of  things  in  kinds,  is  the 
companion  notion  to  '  unity,'  much  after  the  analogy  of  time 
and  space. 

Unless  there  were  paHicular,  or  as,  in  reference  to  kinds,  it 
is  to  be  called,  individual  unity,  there  would  be  no  meaning  in 
speaking  of  kinds  of  things :  unless  there  were  generic  unity, 
there  would  be  no  meaning  in  speaking  of  things :  for  by  things' 
we  mean  things  according  to  kinds. 

As  we  start  from  immediateness  and  apply  to  it  reflection, 
we  have  first  particular  or  individual  unity  and  then  generic 
unity  or  genericity.  But  as  we  start  from  reflection  or  notice 
and  apply  it  to  immediateness  or  fact,  we  have  first  generic 
unity,  or  a  thing,  next  particular  unity,  or  this  particular 
thing. 

Putting  for  a  moment,  and  for  the  better  understanding,  a 
sort  of  exaggerated  or  caricatured  significance  into  the  notions 
'pure  or  bare  perception  or  understanding,'  'the  part  of  the 
mind  in  thought,'  '  ideas  as  distinguished  from  sense,'  we  may 
call  it  or  them  the  anticipations  by  the  mind  of  its  after 
knowledge,  of  that  knowledge  which  it  has  when  it  comes  to 
experience.  What  I  have  said  as  to  reflection  may  be  similarly 
distorted  or  exaggerated  for  a  temporary  purpose.  Generic 
unity,  I  said,  if  we  start  fi-om  the  point  of  view  of  reflection, 
is  anterior  to  particular.  Experience  is  by  the  nature  of  it 
particular :  the  generality  of  our  ideas,  which  corresponds  to 
the  genericity  of  things,  comes  with  reflection.     How  is  this  ? 

Speaking  roughly,  we  think  of  portions  of  the  universe  in  a 
general  manner,  which  is  the  same  thing  as  viewing  them  as 


I 


224 


CONCEPTION. 


[chap. 


generic  or  as  things,  on  account  of  the  impulse  to  communicate 
with  other  minds  about  them — in  fact  to  talk  of  them. 

This  is  the  first  suggestion  of  genericity  in  things,  which 
prepares  the  way  for  other  more  definite  suggestions  afterwards. 
It  is  also  consistent  with  a  process  of  learning  the  distinction 
between  genericity  and  individuality,  which  I  shall  shortly 
speak  of  All  I  mean  here  is,  that  there  is  a  rapid  impulse  to 
associate  with  sound  any  object  of  perception,  for  the  purpose 
of  having  a  mutual  or  common  intelligence,  a  communication, 
on  the  occasion  of  it,  with  any  other  intelligence  locally  present : 
this  is  surely  the  way  in  which  the  mind  of  infants  begins  to 
work.  The  perceived  object  therefore  at  once  acquires  a  second 
existence  before  the  mind  in  the  sound :  and  this  doubleness  of 
its  existence  renders  much  possible  in  the  mind  about  it  which 
would  not  be  so  otherwise. 

The  first  existence  however  of  the  object  before  the  mind,  is 
neither  generic  nor  individual,  but '  singular '  or  *  proper '  in  so 
far  as  we  do  not  mean  by  '  proper '  something  distinguished 
from  general.  Soon  this  'singularness*  is  divided  into  genericity 
and  individuality,  and  the  point  of  importance  is,  that  it  is  the 
existence  of  the  object  of  thought  as  something  mentally 
graspable  by  means  of  the  sound,  which  renders  this  division 
possible. 

The  sound  then  comes  to  represent  the  object  as  generic, 
and  is,  in  fact,  the  fixed  standing  ground,  the  firm  holding 
point,  which  the  mind  has  in  reference  to  the  object  in 
this  view. 

But  then,  in  the  same  way  as  under  the  unity  of  the 
universe  comes  the  distinguishment  of  things  altogether,  so 
under  the  generic  unity  of  things  comes  the  distinguishment 
of  individuals.  And  as,  sensively,  everything  is  particular,  so, 
reflectionally,  everything  is  generic.  Designating  the  kind,  or 
generic  unity,  by  the  sound,  we  have  to  add  something  to  this, 
some  other  sound,  for  individual  distinguishment.  The  generic 
unity,  however,  is  still  what  makes  the  thing:  this,  with  the 
distinguishment,  is  the  thing  as  it  can  be  perceived :  the 
particular.  This  is  merely  *  substantive  and  adjective ' :  logic- 
ally, '  substance  and  attribute.' 


VIII.] 


CONCEPTION. 


225 


To  sum  up  for  the  present  what  this  is  all  coming  to :  the 
question  is,  'How,  in  what  manner,  do  we  think?'  'think* 
referring  here  to  that  part  of  our  thought  which  is  not  pictorial 
imagination. 

The  answer  is,  by  three  processes  united :  and  I  believe  it 
to  be  an  accident  of  individual  minds  whether  one  of  the  three 
is  more  operative  than  the  others :  nor  would  I  say  but  that 
there  might  be  other  processes  subsidiary,  for  I  have  no  faith 
in  numbers  in  philosophy.     The  processes  are,  (1)  Imagination 
of  sounds,  i.e.  of  the  sounded  word,  which  in  people  who  read 
and  think  much  is  probably  a  good  deal  superseded  by  quasi- 
visual    imagination    of    the   word    as    printed:    (2)   Pictorial 
imagination  subsidiary,  or  as  it  were  circumvolitant,  presenting 
to  the  mind  types,  examples,  or  illustrations,  and  very  fre- 
quently  one   special,   almost   permanent   type:   (3)   Thought, 
again  (like  the  thought  of  the  whole  as  I  am  describing  it, 
but  somewhat  irregular,  like  the  last-mentioned  operation  of 
imagination),  of  the  attributes  that   distinguish   the  generic 
unity  (which  is   the  object  of  thought)   from  other  generic 
unities,  or  which  constitute  its  qualities  and  make  up  what 
is  called  its  definition.     Every  generic  unity  has  the  character 
of  being  a  quasi-individual,  or  what  logicians  call  a  species, 
relative  to  other  generic  unities  more  wide  than  itself:   and 
has   its   own   distinguishments  therefore  or  qualities,  as   the 
individuals  under  it  have  theirs. 

The  last  of  the  three  processes  which  I  have  described  is 
the  most  important,  and  may  be  said  to  constitute  the  essence 
or  reality  of  thought,  the  other  two  being  only  subsidiary.  But 
it  will  be  observed,  that  in  speaking  of  it,  in  an  attempt  to 
describe  thought,  I  could  call  this  by  no  other  name  than 
thought,  and  it  would  have  to  be  described  again  by  means 
of  imagination  verbal  and  visual,  like  the  whole.  So  that  it 
comes  to  this,  that  if  we  are  asking  what  is  in  the  mind,  we 
seem  not  able  to  get  beyond  its  being  this  imagination,  the 
thought  being,  in  a  manner,  a  sort  of  ttsing  it. 

Roughly,  this  third  process  may  be  said  to  express  the 
object  of  the  thought-word :  the  two  former,  the  manner  of  the 
thinking  it. 


M. 


16 


n 


226 


CONCEPTION. 


[chap. 


VIII.] 


CONCEPTION. 


227 


[•■> 


The  thought- word,  or  meaning  of  the  word,  is  that  to  which 
most  correctly  belongs  the  expression  *  concept/  '  notion,'  '  idea,* 
as  Locke  uses  this  latter.  In  speaking  of  words  here  of  course 
I  am  speaking  of  what  we  should  call  general  words  as 
distinguished  from  proper  names. 

There  is  the  word  as  imagined  and  thought,  and  also  the 
'thing'  as  imagined  and  thought.  The  word  is  imagined  or 
mind-painted  variously,  the  thing  more  variously  still.  The 
thought-word  and  the  thought-thing  are  the  same,  and  are  what 
is  called  the  '  concept.'  The  thing  in  question  is  thought,  by 
regulated  imagination  of  what  I  have  described  as  its  attributes 
or  qualities :  and  the  thing  is  subjected  to  thought  (so  to  speak) 
by  means  of  a  supposition  of  it  as  independent  of  its  attributes, 
that  is,  not  as  without  them,  nor  yet  as  with  them,  but  as,  for 
a  moment,  without  consideration  of  them— this  supposition  is 
the  substantial  thing,  or  thing  as  substance.  Corresponding 
with  the  substance  and  attribute  of  thought  is  the  subject  and 
predicate  of  word :  and  after  the  analogy  of  language  which  I 
have  just  used,  'substance'  is  the  thought-subject  of  our 
thought, '  attribute '  a  thought-predicate  of  this  subject.  These 
attributes  or  predicates  stand  in  various  relations  to  the 
substance  or  subject,  and  I  do  not  think  that  philosophical 
language  has  ever  been  very  strict  in  its  manner  of  speaking 
of  them.  The  important  distinction  of  them  is  into  those 
which  are  necessary  to,  or  always  present  with,  the  substance 
or  subject,  and  those  which  are  contingent  or  only  possibly 
present:  the  former  make  up  the  'definition.' 

I  hope  another  time  to  speak  at  more  length  about 
'substance'  and  'attribute,'  and  will  now  leave  this  subject 
with  the  following  summary. 

Knowledge  is  the  application  of  reflection  to  immediate- 
ness,  or,  in  rougher  and  simpler  language,  of  notice  to  fact. 
Knowledge  may  be  called  generally  notice  of  fact,  or  fact 
presenting  itself  to  our  notice,  but  it  must  not  be  divided,  and 
called  at  once  both,  fact  presenting  itself  to  our  notice,  and 
notice  on  our  part  of  it,  because  these  things  are  the  same  in 
dififerent  words:  the  division  of  the  whole  into  earperience  or 
felt  fact  as  an  inferior  knowledge,  on  the  one  side,  and  on  the 


!»l 


other  side,  pure  or  bare  notice  with  certain  objects  of  knowledge 
peculiar  to  it,  which  it  applies  to  the  above  experience,  is 
fallacious. 

Still,  as  I  have  said,  and  as  I  hope  to  illustrate  more  at 
length,  knowledge  is  the  application  of  notice  to  fact,  and  we 
may  speak  of  notice  and  fact  separately,  though  we  must  not, 
as  above,  divide  knowledge  between  them,  nor,  according  to 
what  I  have  called  the  wroug  psychology,  in  investigating  the 
process  of  notice,  assume  beforehand  fact,  as  it  is  to  us  after 
our  notice  of  it  is  complete. 

One  way  therefore  in  which  we  notice  the  universe  in  which 
we  find  ourselves,  as  we  do,  is  in  virtue  of  our  impulse  to 
communication,  which  is  the  mental  source  of  the  formation  of 
concepts,  and  this  formation  of  concepts  is  in  fact  a  viewing  of 
reality  as  composed  of  substances  with  their  attributes,  a  way 
of  viewing  it  corresponding  to,  and  yet  differing  from,  the 
viewing  it  as  composed  of  particular  things  in  their  kinds. 

In  saying  that  we  notice  what  we  find  ourselves  in,  as  we 
do,  I  do  not  intend  these  for  two  independent  things,  which 
would  be  the  error  that  I  protest  against.     It  is  the  noticing 
as  we  do  what  we  find  ourselves  in,  which  makes  us  consider 
that   this  is   what   we   find   ourselves   in.      And   the  finding 
ourselves  in  whatever  it  is,  is  in  fact  the  noticing  it.     Only,  as 
we  look  at  knowledge  from  the  one  side  or  the  other,  it  presents 
Itself  differently  to  us,  and  to  understand  it,  we  must  look  at  it 
from  both.     Thus,  by  substance  and  attribute  is  specially  the 
way  in  which  we  conceive  things,  and  by  subject  and  predicate 
the  way  in  which  we  speak  of  them.     This  way  of  conceiving 
is  neither  discordant  from  the  fact,  nor  is  it  to  be  considered  in 
such  a  way  giving  us  the  fact,  that  we  are  bound,  so  to  speak, 
to  find  a  separate  reality  for  'substance'  and  for  'attribute.' 
It  is  the  doing  of  this  which  produces  the  notion  of  '  things  in 
themselves/  things,  by  their  very  nature  as  things,  beyond  our 
knowledge. 

Both  our  noticing  things  as  we  do  and  things  being  what 
they  are  for  us  to  notice  are  parts  or  outgrowths  of  the  me 
immediateness  or  general  fact,  out  of  which  we  and  the  universe 
awake  to  understand  and  be  understood. 

16—2 


fl 


I 


228 


CONCEPTION. 


[chap.  VIII. 


The  way  in  which  we  think  about  things  and  the  way  in 
which  things  present  themselves  to  us  are  two  vieivs  of  know- 
ledge :  and  they  (1)  must  not  be  considered  as  two  things,  nor 
(2)  be  confused  together  when  we  speak  of  knowledge,  or 
be  applied  the  one  to  correct  the  other. 

The  former  is  the  proceeding  (erroneous  as  I  think)  of 
Kant  and  Dr  Whewell  and  other  distinguished  philosophers. 
The  latter  is  that  of  Mr  Mill,  where  he  describes  the  universe 
as  made  up  of  substances  and  their  attributes. 


BOOK   III. 


WHAT    IS    MATERIALISM? 


'|! 


i 


CHAPTER  I. 

LIMITATIONS   OF   MATERIALISM.       PSYCHICAL   ANATOMY 
CANNOT   EXPLAIN    OUR   MENTAL   EXPERIENCE. 


The  word  '  progress '  may  be  said  to  have  a  triple  meaning. 
It  is  progress  as  *  course/  or  progress  as  'improvement/  or 
progress  as  'advance.' 

The  *  course '  of  philosophy,  as  the  history  of  man  goes  on, 
is  'improvement/  but  is  not  necessarily  'advance.'  By  which 
I  mean,  that,  while  the  course  of  physical  science  is  improve- 
ment and  this  improvement  is  advance  (i.e.  our  cyclopaedia  of 
actual  knowledge  in  it  increases  every  day  in  bulk,  and  we  can 
distinctly  mark  each  step),  it  is  not  so  in  philosophy :  we  may 
understand  philosophy  better  than  the  ancients  did  without 
knowing  more  about  it :  perhaps  even  seeming  to  know  less. 

There  exists  in  modern  times  one  great  branch  of  physical 
science  which  scarcely  existed  at  all  among  the  ancients,  but 
which  now  enlarges  its  dimensions,  and  increases  its  discoveries, 
every  day.  This  is  the  application  of  anatomy  to  psychology, 
psychical  or  psychologic  anatomy,  physiopsychology  or  psycho- 
physiology,  if  we  take  care  of  the  meaning  which  we  give  to 
this  latter  expression.  This  claims  to  take  the  place  of  philo- 
sophy as  hitherto  treated,  on  the  double  ground  of  this  latter 
having  been  non-advancing,  which,  according  to  a  manner  of 
thought  usual  with  us  now,  is  taken  for  the  same  as  wrong  or 
false,  and  also  (a  view  considered  in  close  connexion  with  the 
other)  of  its  dealing  with  notions  and  unrealities,  whereas  the 
psychical  anatomy  deals  with  facts. 


II 


t! 


232 


LIMITATIONS   OF   MATERIALISM.      PSYCHICAL         [CHAP. 


h 


In  order  for  philosophy  to  hold  its  ground  it  is  necessary,  in 
regaixi  of  the  former  of  these  views,  that  it  should  either  show 
itself  advancing,  or  else  show  that  its  improvement  does  not 
necessarily  involve  advance :  and  in  regard  of  the  latter  of  the 
views,  it  should  be  prepared  to  question  the  claim  of  the 
psychical  anatomy  to  be  the  sole  domain  of  fact  in  regard  to 
thought  and  knowledge,  it  should  be  able  to  make  good  a  higher 
notion  of  fact. 

It  is  one  of  the  principles  upon  which  I  have  wished  to  go 
from  the  first  that,  whatever  the  psychical  anatomy  can  make 
out  upon  its  own  proper  scientific  method,  is  to  be,  not 
grudgingly  admitted,  but  cordially  welcomed,  as  what  must 
really  help  philosophy,  so  far  as  philosophy  is  the  pursuit  of 
truth.  I  regard  the  jealousy  felt  of  researches  in  this  direction 
on  the  ground  of  their  supposed  leading  to  what  is  called 
*  materialism,'  as  a  very  great  misfortune.  Such  a  feeling  justi- 
fies the  counter-feeling  on  the  part  of  those  who  make  the 
researches,  that  the  road  they  are  pursuing  leads  to  something 
which,  as  a  matter  of  course,  must  be  looked  upon  by  a  large 
number  of  people  as  something  to  be  accepted  indeed — for  we 
can  do  no  better — but  a  something  disheartening,  cutting  off 
hope,  inconsistent  with  ideals  and  aspiration,  browbeating  our 
self-complacency,  and  reducing  us  to  our  true  place  in  existence 
from  a  vague  imagination  of  a  higher.  All  this,  on  one  side 
and  the  other,  seems  to  me  something  quite  beside  science  and 
philosophy.  Vain  dread  on  the  one  side  and  vain  pretension  on 
the  other  here  aggravate  each  other. 

I  may  as  well  preface  what  I  am  upon  now  by  saying  in 
general,  that  wherever,  whether  on  the  side  of  religion,  or  on  a 
side  more  or  less  opposed  to  it,  I  meet  with  a  doctrine,  one  of 
whose  principles  is  the  browbeating  and  humiliation  of  any 
part  of  our  intelligence,  I  look  upon  it  as  being  so  far  wrong. 
I  look  upon  both  religion  and  truth  (to  speak  of  them  for  the 
moment  as  different)  as  elevators  of  our  thought :  and  when  I 
am  told  in  respect  of  anything  professing  to  be  the  one  or  the 
other,  'It  is  hard,  but  this  is  something  to  which  you  must 
bow  and  subject  your  intelligence,'  'It  is  hard,  but  this  is 
something  to  which  you  must  depress  your  imaginations  and 


l]    anatomy  cannot  explain  our  mental  experience.    233 

limit  your  hopes,'— I  feel,  if  I  do  not  say,  that  I  believe  in 
my  intelligence,  my  imaginations,  and  my  hopes,  and  require 
whoever  claims  thus  to  invalidate  them  to  show  a  very  definite 
warrant  for  it.  When  I  am  bid  to  accept,  as  I  am  most  ready 
to  do,  the  information  which  an  apparently  well-grounded 
revelation  gives  me,  I  say, '  I  can  only  accept  this  in  the  same 
way  in  which  I  would  accept  any  information  or  testimony 
about  anything,  viz.,  on  the  basis  of  my  having  an  intelligence 
prepared  for  it,  of  my  having  certain  ideas  and  notions  already 
upon  that  which  the  information  concerns,  or  else  I  can  make 
nothing  of  it :  the  information  may  perhaps  put  an  end  to  some 
speculations  which,  after  it,  I  find  to  be  vain,  but  its  character 
as  a  whole  must  be  an  enlarging  and  supplement  of  my  know- 
ledge, not  an  overthrowing  it,  and  though  I  partially  submit 
my  intelligence,  I  in  a  much  greater  degree  find  it  expanded 
and  elevated.' 

My  feeling  seems  to  me  to  be  the  same,  with  a  different 
application,  when  I  read  what  is  said  by  many  professing 
mateiialists.  It  is  all  very  well,  they  will  tell  us,  to  imagine 
or  to  hope :  but  truth  exists  not  for  us:  that  we  should  like  a 
thing  to  be  so  and  so,  is  no  reason  for  supposing  that  it  is  so : 
there  may  be  human,  generic  imaginations,  about  a  spiritual 
world,  about  a  future  life,  and  much  besides,  and  yet  all  this 
may  be  illusion  only,  and  if  we  find  out  the  truth  to  be  other- 
wise, we  must  confess  it  is  only  illusion,  and  must  acquiesce  in 
our  lot. 

Supposing  this  professing  materialist  to  have  followed,  as  he 
very  likely  will  have  done,  what  I  have  called  above  the  proper 
scientific  method  of  psychical  anatomy,  I  allow  fully  that,  in 
that  to  which  he  calls  upon  me  to  submit  my  imaginations  and 
hopes,  there  is  much  of  truth.  But  what  I  want  to  be  certain 
of  is,  how  far  the  truth  which  he  brings  me  is  all  the  truth 
which  there  is  about  the  matter.  It  is  very  likely  that  to  him 
it  will  appear  so :  it  is  what  he  has  most  likely  spent  his  life  in 
investigating,  and  the  study  of  which  has  formed  his  mind:  so 
much  the  more  is  what  he  brings  likely  to  be  truth  within  its 
range.  But  I  am  not  so  ready,  as  he  would  have  me,  to  allow 
that  my  imaginations  and  hopes  have  nothing  to  do  with  truth. 


t 


( 


234  LIMITATIONS  OF   MATERIALISM.      PSYCHICAL         [CHAP. 

They  are  facts  :  they  seem  to  me  to  mean  something,  to  betoken 
something :  it  may  be  hard  to  tell  what :  but  then  I  ask  myself, 
whether  the  line  of  thought  of  this  physiologist  has  been  such 
as  to  make  him  a  good  judge  about  them,  and  to  warrant  him 
thus  summarily  to  tell  me  that  they  mean  nothing,  and  are 
worth  nothing.  To  know  the  mutual  inconsistency  or  contra- 
dictoriness  of  two  kinds  of  truth,  we  must  have  a  knowledge 
not  only  from  the  one  side,  but  from  the  other.  And  I  have 
a  belief  (of  course  such  a  matter  can  be  belief  only)  that  truth 
is  a  mistress  who  reigns  by  the  affection  of  her  subjects,  our 
thoughts,  not  by  arbitrary  calls  for  their  submission.  When- 
ever I  hear  these  latter,  I  feel  a  disposition  to  think  that  it 
is  not  truth  that  is  calling,  but  either  something  else  in  her 
name,  or  else  servants  of  hers  who  do  not  quite  know  the  proper 
language  of  her  servants. 

There  is  indeed  one  thing  most  important  to  bear  in  mind 
about  anything  in  regard  of  which  we  have  imaginations,  or  hopes, 
or  fears,  that  is,  that  our  thoughts  do  not  make  fact,  and  that 
the  truth,  whatever  it  is,  is  what  it  is,  whatever  we  think  about 
it.     I  mention  this,  because  in  matters  as  to  which  our  thought 
is  really  so  important  as,  we  will  say,  a  future  life,  we  are  apt 
to  make  it  even  of  mare  importance  to  us  than  it  really  is,  by  a 
sort  of  feeling  as  if  the  fact  depended  upon  it,  as  if  the  pro- 
fessing materialist  not  only  took  away  from  us  whatever  comfort 
(of  course  also  whatever  dread)  the  thought  here  of  a  future 
life  might  cause,  but  the  friture  life  itself.     The  future  life  will 
be,  if  it  is  to  be,  quite  independent  of  what  the  materialist,  or 
we,  may  think  about  it :  and  so  far  as  our  lot  in  it  is  to  depend 
ou  what  we  do  or  believe  here,  that  also  will  be  as  it  is  to  be, 
independent  of  philosophical   speculation,  only  that  then  the 
possible  destruction  of  our  belief  by  this  may  be  a  matter  of 
important  consideration.     But,  besides  the  religious  belief  which 
we  may  have,  and  in  a  region  of  thought  wider  and  more  elemen- 
tary than  this,  it  seems  to  me  that  the  ultimate  feeling  of  our 
nature  (or  our  reason,  for  here  all  such  words  mean  the  same 
thing)  is,  that  so  far  as  we  have  given  to  us  faculties  to  imagine 
and  hope  whatever  it  may  be,  we  have,  in  a  manner,  given  us 
the  thing  itself;  that  in  nature  there  is  nothing  self-stultifying, 


}4  '« 


L]      anatomy  CANNOT  EXPLAIN  OUR  MENTAL  EXPERIENCE.     235 

self-neutralizing ;  that  it  is  not  science  or  philosophy  which  calls 
for  the  submission  of  our  intelligence  in  such  a  manner  as  to  do 
violence  to  it ;  but  that  its  submission  must  be  to  reason,  and, 
so  to  speak,  to  reason  in  the  same  kind  of  thought.  However, 
I  am  not  unlikely  to  have  to  speak  of  this  again,  and  will  not 
dwell  longer  on  it  now. 

I  have  used  the  expression  '  professed  materialists'  here  to 
signify  those  who,  from  the  point  of  view  of  psychical  anatomy, 
consider  themselves  able  to  make  out  that  the  notions  which 
men  have  at  various  times  maintained  as  to  another  world  and  a 
future  life  cannot  possibly  have  any  foundation.  We  will  now 
see  how  far,  in  the  way  of  this  method  of  psychical  anatomy, 
we  do  seem  to  arrive  in  this  direction. 

Supposing  for  a  time  we  abstract  and  put  aside  all  notion  of 
pei-sonality  or  consciousness,  and  consider  that,  on  the  method 
of  psychical  anatomy,  all  thought,  even  the  most  complicated, 
is  explained,  that  is  to  say,  explained  with  such  explanation  as 
the  principles  of  psychical  anatomy  allow  of.  Let  us  see  what 
this  amounts  to. 

We  will  then  say  nothing  about  'I'  or  'we,'  but  simply 
*  there  is  thought,' '  there  is  action,'  and  so  on,  in  the  various 
degrees  of  complication  and  abstractness.  And  we  will  suppose 
that  we  are  able  to  dissect  or  analyse  our  corporeal  organization 
to  the  extremest  point  of  subtlety:  not  only  to  dissect  its 
composition,  but  to  follow,  in  their  actual  occurrence,  the  most 
delicate  movements  of  the  most  refined  portions  of  it. 

Were  this  so,  we  might  conceive  ourselves  arriving  at  such 
a  point  of  knowledge  as  to  have  a  corporeal  movement,  or  change 
of  state  (including  in  *  corporeal '  everything,  even  the  most 
refined,  dissectable,  observable,  or  analysable)  for  every  mental 
change  of  state  or  thought,  as  we  should  express  ourselves  in 
the  now  usual  language.  As  we  know  at  present  that  there  is 
an  affection  of  the  optic  nerve  corresponding  to  sight,  so  we 
might  know  that,  corresponding  to  the  most  abstract  or  compli- 
cated thought  (as  that  two  straight  lines  cannot  inclose  a  space, 
that  Socrates  was  poisoned,  or  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as 
virtue),  there  was  some  affection  of  some  nerve,  or  of  some 
portion,  large  or  small,  of  the  nerve  and  brain  system ;  particular 


236 


LIMITATIONS   OF  MATERIALISM.      PSYCHICAL         [CHAP. 


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according  to  the  particularity  of  the  thought ;  so  that  with  any 
variation  of  the  thought  there  would  be  variation  of  the  bodily 
state.  We  might  continue  the  supposition  to  the  passage  from 
thought  to  what  we  call  'action.'  Corresponding  to  what  in 
language  we  call  the  determining  to  do  a  thing  and  the  doing 
it,  we  might  suppose  the  minute  internal  movement,  only 
appreciable  by  the  psychical  anatomist,  followed  by  movements 
of  hand  and  arm,  &c.  visible  to  all. 

If  we  conceive  a  theory  of  this  kind  perfect,  the  psychical 
anatomist  will  be  able  to  describe  thought  perfectly  from  his 
point  of  view.    We  will  suppose  for  greater  definiteness  that  the 
theory  is  something  like  Hartley's,  of  vibrations   in  delicate 
nervous  strings  all  over  the  body,  brain  and  all :  then  the  idea 
of  space,  as  we  call  it,  would  be  a  particular  vibration  of  such 
and  such  portions  of  the  nervous  system.     It  would  be  just  the 
same  if  we  took  any  other  theory  of  what  I  may  call  the 
corporeal  character  of  thought.     We  may  suppose  imagination, 
memory,  &c.  to  be,  as  Hobbes  calls  it,  decaying  sense,  or  sense 
persistent  in  any  way,  or  semi-persistent,  or  latently  persistent 
with  a  tendency  to  recur  should  particular  associations  bring  it 
back.     As  there  is  afiPection  of  the  nerves  in  sense,  so  there 
would  be  similarly  in  imagination  and  memory.     Again,  sup- 
posing that  abstract  thought  arises  from  the  various  confluence 
of  imaginations,  and  the  nerves  being  affected  in  the  imagina- 
tions, there  would  in  this  case  be  a  similar  nervous  affection,  but 
in  a  more  complicated  and  refined  manner.     Abstract  thought, 
to  describe  it  from  this  point  of  view,  is  this  affection  of  the 
nerves  or  nervous  state.     The  brain  and  body  altogether  is 
a  delicate   organization    and    system,   which,    correspondingly 
with  the  existence  of  thought,  is  in  one  state  or  another,  and 
its  being  in  this  or  that  state  we  may  say  constitutes   the 

thought. 

The  point  is,  how  much  do  we  explain  by  all  this  ?  In 
saying  that  the  refined  bodily  state  constitutes  the  thought,  are 
we  doing  any  more  than  shutting  our  eyes  to  one  portion  of  the 
entire  fact  ?  In  the  view  above,  there  take  place  in  the  organiza- 
tion, according  to  the  laws  of  nature,  certain  changes,  according 
to  higher  laws  indeed,  but  still  in  the  same  sort  of  way,  in  which 


L]      ANATOMY  CANNOT  EXPLAIN  OUR  MENTAL  EXPERIENCE.     237 


chemical  changes  take  place  in  some  chemical  substance ;  in 
fact,  in  the  same  sort  of  way  in  which  physical  change  of  any 
kind  takes  place.  Our  view  is  enlarged,  and  our  physical  know- 
ledge increased,  by  the  observation  of  the  laws  of  these  changes. 
But  I  do  not  see  how,  by  observing  them,  we  have  got  at 
all  further  towards  the  understanding  of  thought  in  that  meaning 
of  thought  which  leads  us  to  say — still  not  to  come  to  person- 
ality and  consciousness  till  we  are  fairly  forced  to  do  it — there 
is  sight  or  thought  of  things,  and  this  sight  or  thought  of  things 
is  something  different  from  anything  that  is  in  things,  or  from 
any  action  or  affection  of  them.  Things  in  reference  to  it 
appear  in  a  different  light  from  that  in  which  they  appear  in 
relation  to  each  other:  the  expression  'sight'  from  the  first 
means  something  different  from  the  relation  of  an  external 
object  to  a  nerve ;  and  all  this  apparent  corporeal  explanation 
is  really  nothing  more  than  a  circuitous  way  of  altering  the 
meaning  of  the  word,  or,  as  I  have  said,  shutting  our  eyes  to  a 
part  of  the  fact  which  it  expresses. 

All  the  corporeal  explanation  is  really  only  a  discussion  of 
a  portion  of  the  fact :  what  I  have  called  above  '  professed 
materialism '  is  a  taking  of  this  portion  of  the  fact  for  the  whole. 
And  the  notion  of  the  professed  materialists,  that  they  are  right 
in  doing  this,  seems  to  me  a  good  deal  confirmed  by  the  dealing 
of  their  adversaries  towards  them.  That  we  see  with  the  eyes 
everybody  allows :  but  that  we  think  with  the  brain  is  called 
materialism.  (It  may  now  be  seen  why  I  have  used  the 
expression  'professed  materialism'  with  the  design  of  distin- 
guishing an  avowed  philosophical  creed  from  vague  charges  of 
holding  this  or  that  doctrine.)  But  I  do  not  see  why  it  is  more 
materialistic,  in  any  important  meaning  of  that  term,  to  call  the 
brain  (or  nervous  system  including  the  brain)  the  instrument  or 
organ  of  thought  in  general,  than  to  call  the  eye  the  instrument 
or  organ  of  vision.  The  mistake  arises,  in  the  main,  from  that 
mistake  about  the  nature  of  sense  or  sensation  upon  which  I  am 
continually  animadverting.  The  eye  sees,  we  say:  or,  more 
generally,  the  sense  gives  us  experience  or  inferior  knowledge. 
Now  if,  as  it  is  the  eye  that  sees,  so  it  is  the  brain  that  thinks, 
then  where  are  we  ?    Then  materialism  does  absorb  all.     But  in 


If 


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238 


LIMITATIONS  OF  MATERIALISM.      PSYCHICAL         [CHAP. 


reality  sight  is  thought,  and  a  large  part  of  what  we  call 
thought  is  inward  sight,  and  the  so-called  materialist  is  probably 
right  in  saying  that  a  large  part  of  it  at  least  (may  be  all)  is 
accompanied  with  nervous  affection,  as  sight  is  :  only  that  it  is 
we  that  do  it  all,  sight  as  well  as  abstract  thought,  and  unless 
there  was  the  *  we '  doing  it,  sight  would  be  no  more  sight  than 
thought  in  general  would  be  thought. 

The  anti-materialists  seem  to  me  to  strengthen  and  en- 
courage their  adversaries  by  such  arguments  as  this:  'But  then 
you  leave  the  soul  nothing  to  do — you  make  it  a  sort  of  idle 
presence  by  which  everything  is  said  to  be  done,  a  sort  of  royal 
personage  in  whose  name  all  is  done,  whilst  the  brain  and  body 
are  really  what  do  all,  and  the  supposition  of  the  present  soul 
is  merely  otiose.'  All  this  seems  to  me  to  be  just  the  kind  of 
mistake  which  gives  possibility  of  reason  to  the  mateiialist 
supposition.  The  body  does  not  do  one  sort  of  work  and  the 
soul  another,  so  that  if  we  find  the  body  doing  all  that  we 
previously  supposed  the  soul  did,  we  have  lost  all  reason  for 
supposing  the  soul  to  exist.  If '  soul '  and  'body'  are  the  terms 
we  like  to  use,  then  the  body  is  the  instrument  of  the  soul,  and 
it  certainly  to  a  great  extent  is  an  instrument  in  all  that  we  call 
thought  and  knowledge.  The  finding  it  more  an  instrument  of 
thought  than  we  had  previously  considered,  makes  no  philo- 
sophical alteration  in  the  supposition :  there  is  nothing  in  the 
new  finding  to  give  it  less  the  character  of  an  instrument  than 
formerly.  The  absence  of  a  part  of  the  brain  may  be  accom- 
panied with  incapacity  for  one  sort  of  thought ;  this  is  like 
blindness  as  to  the  eye.  Even  if  we  suppose  the  soul  to  have 
nothing  to  do  but  to  manage  the  body  as  its  instrument,  that 
very  management  seems  to  me  to  be  enough,  and  to  imply 
what  makes  the  supposition  of  it  not  otiose. 

I  have  only  however  for  a  moment  used  this  language  of 
'sour  and  *body,'  which  belongs  to  an  order  of  considerations  to 
which  I  do  not  wish  to  advert  now,  viz.  considerations  as  to  the 
possible  existence  of  the  soul  independently  of  the  body.  I  am 
now  speaking  of  thought  (mly :  and  all  thought,  as  we  know 
anything  about  it,  is  at  least  connected  with  the  body  and  sense. 
The  supposition  of  the  professed  materialist  is,  that  it  is  suffi- 


m 


I.]   ANATOMY  CANNOT  EXPLAIN  OUR  MENTAL  EXPERIENCE.  239 

ciently  described,  as  thought,  by  being  called  a  modification  of 
the  more  refined  portions  of  the  body. 

All  that  can  be  discovered  really  by  the  psychical  anatomist 
is,  that  there  takes  place  this  modification.  The  modification, 
or  corporeal  change,  bears,  as  I  have  said,  an  analogy  to  a 
chemical  change  in  any  substance.  On  the  other  hand  it  is  in 
a  way  which  is  not  only  not  physical,  but  which  cannot  be 
brought  into  relation  with  physical  laws,  that  we  know  this 
modification  to  be  accompanied  by  what  we  call  consciousness. 
And  the  important  thing  is,  that  this  consciousness  is  not 
consciousness  of  the  modification  (the  use — even  momentary — 
of  this  expression  is  distasteful  to  me — consciousness  of  some- 
thing material)  :  that  is,  it  is  not  knowledge  of  the  occurrence 
of  the  modification,  such  a  knowledge  as  the  anatomist  after- 
wards gets;  but  it  is  a  thought,  knowledge,  or  whatever  we 
may  call  it,  of  something  apparently  quite  different.  A 
modification  takes  place  in  my  eye  and  optic  nerve,  and  a 
part  (or  the  whole)  of  my  brain.  I  have  a  consciousness  corre- 
sponding or  contemporaneous  with  it,  but  my  consciousness 
is  not  of  the  modification,  or  anything  like  it :  my  consciousness 
is  something  which  I  describe  perhaps  as  the  perception  of  a 
beautiful  prospect  with  mountains  and  trees  and  houses  and 
sky.  This  then  is  at  least  one  side  of  the  thought,  which  the 
psychical  anatomist  describes  as  such  and  such  a  modification 
of  nerve  and  brain :  and  when  he  tells  me  again  that  the 
thought  is  this  modification,  and  that  is  the  last  word  of  science 
about  it,  he  does  not  seem  to  me  to  face  or  to  look  at  the  thing 
which  I  want  explained,  which  is,  how  a  thing  which  is  on  the 
one  side  this  modification  of  nerve  and  brain  should  on  the 
other  side  be  something  so  different.  He  will  say  perhaps 
*This  is  a  mystery:  no  physical  science  can  tell  us  this.'  That  is 
exactly  what  I  think :  but  that  being  so,  I  do  not  see  what  is 
the  use  of  sajdng  that  physical  science  exhausts,  or  tends  to 
exhaust,  the  problem,  or  that  we  can  have  a  physical  science  in 
any  way  occupying  the  ground  of  the  old  philosophy. 

Let  it  be  observed,  that  the  consciousness  is  not,  as  I  have 
said,  of  what  can,  by  anatomy,  be  made  out  to  take  place,  but, 
apparently,  of  something  different  from  it.     For  it  is  thus  that 


!l 


:    I: 


240 


LIMITATIONS  OF  MATERIALISM.      ETC.  [CHAP.  I. 


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we  have  the  two  worlds,  of  thought  and  of  fact,  which,  however 
they  may  be  coincident,  yet  are,  as  thought  and  fact,  mutually 
independent,  and  the  relation  of  which  together  is,  as  we  shall 
see   in   a  moment,  most  complicated.     We  might  suppose  a 
chemical  substance   conscious   of  what  takes  place  in  it,  in 
consequence  of  another  particular  substance  being  applied  to  it. 
For  all  that  we  know,  there  may  he  consciousness  in  the  uni- 
verse of  this  kind :  we  could  form  no  notion  of  it  if  there  was, 
and  therefore  it  is  not  with  a  great  amount  of  significance  that 
we  can  say  there  is  not.     But  our  consciousness  is  not  of  this 
kind.     Thought  is  not  present  at  the  nerves  or  brain  and  their 
modifications:   or  if  it  is,  it  is  not  as  thought  of  them,  but 
of  something  which  has  nothing  to  do  with  them  ;  it  is  present, 
as  thought,  at  the  sun  and  stars  in  sight,  at  Mont  Blanc  and 
Chimborazo  out  of  sight,  at  griflfins  and  chimeras  which  could 
never  possibly  be  in  sight:  or  rather  (and  it  is  here  that  comes 
in  the  difficulty  and  the  complication)  it  is  present,  as  thought, 
at  what,  in  consequence  of  the  thought,  we  call  by  these  names, 
but  which,  if  it  were  not  for  the  thought,  would   never  be 
suggested  to  us,  and  which  are  thus  in  a  manner,  creations  of 
the  thought.   So  that  we  get  into  the  entanglement,  that  while, 
on  the  one  side,  the  psychical  anatomist  says  that  the  thought 
cannot  exist  without  the  corresponding  modification  of  nerve 
and  brain,  or  even  perhaps,  unphilosophically  says,  that  this 
nerve  and  brain  secrete  or  produce  it;    the   philosopher  on 
the  other  side  may  say,  with  equal  reason,  that  the  thought 
creates  the  universe  as  we  know  it,  and  as  a  part  of  it,  the  very 
nerves  and  brain  which  are  said  to  produce  or  be  the  cause 
of  itself 


CHAPTER  II. 

INTELLECTUAL    AND    MORAL    DIFFICULTIES 
OF   MATERIALISM. 

It  is  possible  that  the  problem  which  we  have  been  con- 
sidering may  not  be  soluble  for  us  in  its  entirety :  all  I  say  is, 
let  us  not  take  half  the  problem  for  the  whole,  and  give  a 
partial  investigation  as  a  solution  of  the  whole,  for  that  is  sure 
to  be  wrong,  and  that  is  what  it  seems  to  me  the  professed 
materialist   does.     I  think  that  the  view  which  I  have  pre- 
viously commented  on,  which  puts  matter  (or  body)  and  mind 
by  the  side   of  each   other  in   the   universe,   or   divides   the 
universe  into  mind  on  the  one  side,  as  a  substance  with  its 
attributes,  and  body  or  matter  on  the  other,  as  a  substance 
(or    substances)   with    its   attributes,  gives    us    a    misleading 
view  of  the  problem.     The  universe  is  more  complicated  than 
this.     What  we  have  as  the  two  things  or  elements  in  the 
universe — if  we  can  in  any  way  conceive  them  as  two  things, 
and  get  them  into  view  side  by  side,  which  is  the  real  problem — 
are  not  matter   and   mind,  but  what   I  will   call  'fact'  and 
'  seeming,'  and  by  '  seeming '  I  do  not  mean  anything  standing  in 
contrast  to  truth — that  may  be  or  may  not  be — but  I  mean 
what  I  have  described  above  as  the  one  side  of  thought :  the 
presentation — to  something  I  suppose,  whoever  and  whatever  it 
may  be — of  things  as  being,  of  fact  as  fact.     The  difficulty 
about  the  universe  is,  that  things  not  only  are — we  will  consent 
to  go  with  the  physical  philosopher  so  far — but  seem,  and  that, 
when  we  come  to  examine  what  we  mean  by  '  they  are,'  we  find 
that  it  resolves  itself  into  this  '  they  seem,'  or  at  least  depends 

M.  16 


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J. 


II 

t  I 


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242 


INTELLECTUAL  AND   MORAL 


[chap. 


upon  it :   and  yet,  if  we  start  with  the  supposition  that  the 
things  are,  their  'seeming'   then   is  only   in  virtue   of  the 
existence   among   them   of  these   particular  things,  with  the 
qualities  they  have,  which  we  call  our  nerves,  brain,  &c.     If  we 
consider  our  nerves  and  brain,  the  seeming  is  an  accident  of  that 
which  is :   the  universe  is  a  great  miscellaDCOUS  aggregate  of 
things,  among  which  happen  to  be  certain  nerves  and  brains,  or 
intellective  organisations ;  and  so  the  universe  not  only  is,  but 
seems  or  is  thought  of:  this,  its  seeming  or  being  thought  of,  is 
to  the  materialist  a  subject  of  interest  only  as  a  matter  of 
nerves  and  brain,  and  when  these  are  anatomized,  this  accident 
of  the  universe  is  dismissed.     But  if  we  come  at  all  to  reflect 
on  the  '  seeming '  or  the  *  thoughtness,'  it  is  this  (it  appears  to 
me)  which  presents  itself  to  us  as  the  main  fact,  and  though 
I  will  not  say  that '  being  *  is  an  accident  of  it,  yet  still  we  have 
to  define  to  ourselves  *  that  which  is '  in  some  such  way  as  this, 
*that  which  seems  to  us  to  be,  and  rightly  seems':  the  seeming 
is  the  more  general,  and  when  we  have  excluded  from  it  that 
which  wrongly  seems,  there  remains  that  which  is.     And,  on 
this  side,  seeming  or  thought,  so  far  from  being  an  accident  of 
the  universe,  is  the  all-important  thing  about  it. 

The  taking  an  abstraction,  in  the  sense  in  which  I  have 
used  the  word,  for  the  whole  of  the  view  which  we  should 
take,  which  is  done,  more  or  less,  by  many  beside  professed 
materialists,  is  a  wider  form  of  the   mistake   which   I   have 

noticed. 

But  this  *  seeming*  of  things  of  course  implies  something 
more  than  the  existence  of  things  :  it  implies  something— mind 
or  intelligence  we  call  it— to  which  they  do  seem  as  they  do. 
I  said  just  now  that  the  universe  was  more  complicated  than 
that  we  could  conceive  it  simply  to  exist,  made  up  of  mind  and 
matter,  and  their  respective  attributes.  This  is  because,  when 
we  introduce  mind,  matter  has  a  double  character,  that  of 
being  and  seeming.  This  puzzles  us.  For  discussions  about 
the  phenomenal  world  itself,  and  the  mutual  relations  of  the 
various  parts  of  it,  there  is  no  difficulty.  We  consider  '  phe- 
nomenon' as  identical  in  signification  with  fact,  that  is,  we 
think  of  the  universe  only  with  reference  to  its  supposed  being, 


II.] 


DIFFICULTIES   OF  MATERIALISM. 


243 


without  any  reference  to  its  seeming,  or  being  perceived.     In 
fact  we  take  our  idea  of  *  being '  from  it :  when  we  say  '  a  thing 
is '  we  mean  that  it  is  a  part  of  this  universe,  with  the  same 
manner  of  being  which  we  suppose  as  belonging  to  that.     We 
then  have  what  I  have  before  called  the  ordinary  '  phenomen- 
alist '  or  physical  view  of  things.     But  all  this  is  only  valid  for 
the  phenomenal  world  itself,  and  the  relations  of  its  parts:  and 
this  is  what  I  have  meant  by  previously  calling  this  view  '  an 
abstraction.'     That  is,  we  must  neither  pronounce  that  there  is 
no  other  reality  besides  this,  nor  must  we  apply  to  such  other 
reality,  supposing  that  there  is  such,  the  logic  or  manner  of 
thought  belonging  to  this.     However  it  may  be  a  fact  that  the 
phenomenal  world  is,  it  is  at  least  as  much  a  fact  that  it  seems, 
i.e.  presents  itself  as  object  of  thought  to  something  which,  in 
virtue  of  this  very  fact,  we  must  consider  as  different  from 
itself     What  is  this  something  ?  and  what  sort  of  existence  has 
it  ?     When  we  come  to  find  that  this  something  is  we,  and  that 
it  is  only  in  virtue  of  this  seeming  of  the  universe  to  us,  parts 
apparently  of  itself,  that  we  have  been  all  along  talking  of  its 
being,  we  get  into  the  puzzle  which  I  have  spoken  of. 

The  studying  ourselves  and  our  sensations  as  far  as  we  can 
on  the  former  or  phenomenalist  supposition,  and  the  pro- 
nouncing, along  with  this  study,  that  all  truth,  or  all  thought 
of  value  for  us,  is  to  be  deduced  from  this  supposition  alone, 
and  then  the  making  assertions  on  this  supposition  about 
things  which  we  may  soon  see  cannot  be  judged  of  from  this — 
this  is  what  I  have  called  professed  materialism. 

Those  valuers  of  phenomenalist  study  who  are  really  philo- 
sophers meet  the  difficulty  as  they  can.  Mr  Mill  gives  us  what 
I  have  called  a  thoroughly  phenomenalist  logic  or  method,  i.e. 
treats  of  things  in  the  first  instance,  for  science  and  life, — with 
careful  putting  aside  all  mention  of  our  conceptions  of  them, — 
as  if  they  were  reality  to  us.  The  consideration  of  their 
*  seeming '  or  being  conceived  by  us  he  will  not  allow  to  disturb 
the  science  of  them :  at  the  beginning  he  mentions  that  it  is 
an  important  consideration,  and  in  fact  that  it  gives  a  secondary 
or  dependent  character  to  all  that  notion  of  their  being  which  is 
assumed  for  physical  science :    this  is  the  same  thing  which 

16-2 


f 


I 


(in 


244 


INTELLECTUAL   AND   MORAL 


[chap. 


1 
I 


I  have  meant  in  calling  this  an  abstraction.    In  his  further 
development  of  this  consideration,  it  seems  to  me  that  at  first 
he  leans  to  a  Kantian  or  Hamiltonian  kind  of  thought,  which 
may  be  described  thus :   we  use  the  expression  '  phenomenal ' 
world,  for  the  universe  of  things  which  we  perceive  by  means 
of  our  senses.     So  far  as  the  application  is  concerned,  there  is 
no  doubt  about  that,  and  we  mean  the  same  thing  by  the  word 
in  this  respect,  which  is  the  important  matter.     But  in  regard 
of  the  signification  of  the  term,  or  the  reason  why  we  call 
the  universe  before  our  senses  *  phenomenal,'  there  is  a  dif- 
ference.    With  me  the  use  of  the  term  '  phenomenal '  may  be 
taken  to  imply  that  I  consider  that  the  universe,  which  we 
assume  to  he,  seems  as  well ;  but  not  at  all  to  imply  that  it 
seems  other  than  it  is,  in  any  possible  respect  or  in  any  meaning 
of  the  term  *  being.'     In  what  I  have  called  the  Kantian  or 
Hamiltonian  manner  of  thought,  I  understand  the  word  'pheno- 
menal' to    have   more   or    less,  besides    its  application,   the 
signification  of  relative  as  opposed  to  absolute,  of  accidental  as 
opposed  to  essential  or  necessary,  and  of  attributal,  belonging 
to  attributes,  as  opposed  to  substantial,  belonging  to  substance. 
This  is  the  manner  of  thought  to  which,  I  think,  at  first  Mr  Mill 

seems  to  lean. 

Afterwards  his  language  at  the  least  is  different:  and  he 
describes  the  things  of  the  universe  as  being  really  (or  to  the 
philosopher)  what  he  calls  'possibilities  of  sensation.'     Here  he 
appears  to  recognize  what  I  have  expressed  by  saying,  that 
when  we  come   to  take  into   account  the  'seeming,'  i.e.  the 
'  thoughtness,'  conceivedness,  perceivedness,  of  things,  it  is  this 
which  presents  itself  as  the  true,  comprehensive,  or  ultimate 
fact,  upon  which  what  we  call  their  being  is  dependent.     But  I 
do  not  like  the  expression '  possibilities  of  sensation,'  because  it 
seems  to  me  an  attempt  to  put  together  notionalism  and  bare 
physicalism— I   use   these  rough   expressions  for    the    better 
understanding— making  a  union  which  cannot  but  be  incon- 
gruous, and  which  does  not  seem  to  me  to  be  suggestive  or  lead 
us  onwai-d.     '  A  possibility  of  sensation,'  like  the  old  Bvvdfiec^;  or 
other  Aristotelian  abstractions,  is  an  abstraction  which  we  can 
make  nothing  of:   on  the  other  hand,  the  word  sensation,  as 


".] 


DIFFICULTIES  OF   MATERIALISM. 


24.5 


Mr  Mill  uses  it  here,  seems  to  me,  though  I  may  mistake  him, 
to  have  an  undue  concreteness,  and  to  mean  something 
implying  the  actual  physical  existence  of  nerve,  brain,  &c.  If 
so,  considering  that  these  nerves,  brain,  &c.  are  things  belonging 
to  the  physical  universe,  which  the  phrase  'possibilities  of 
sensation '  is  to  give  us  a  sort  of  account  of,  the  account  returns 
upon  itself  or  we  make  no  step,  and  are  still  in  that  same 
bewilderment  which  '  being '  and  '  seeming '  together,  as  I  have 
said,  must  cause  to  us. 

If  '  sensation  '  here  means  simply  a  kind  of  consciousness  or 
feeling,  without  any  reference  to  physical  accompaniments  of  it, 
then,  though  there  is  no  harm  in  calling  the  phenomenal  or 
external  world  an  aggregate  of  possibilities  of  such  sensation,  I 
can  hardly  see  that  there  is  much  good  in  it.  At  least  to  make 
the  phrase  mean  much  for  me,  I  must  try  to  translate  it  a  little 
from  its  abstractness.  I  must  mean  by  *  possibility  of  sensation ' 
a  fact,  the  one  great  fact  it  would  be  of  reality.  There  is  no 
doubt  but  that  the  varieties  of  our  (I  do  not  mean  here  any 
stress  on  our)  consciousness  are  facts,  and  our  consciousness 
altogether,  comprehending  these  varieties,  may  be  considered  a 
greater  fact :  and  our  consciousness  is  what  it  is  (one  of  its 
phases  being  what  we  call  perception  of  an  external  world)  in 
virtue,  we  may  presume,  of  some  further  fact,  probably  double : 
i.e.  partly  fact  as  to  what  we  are,  partly  fact  as  to  what  some- 
thing else  is.  We  are  the  subject  of  the  seeming,  that  to  which 
the  something  else  seems:  at  any  rate,  in  our  consciousness, 
something  else  seems  to  seem  to  us.  This  seeming  of  something 
to  us  is  equally  well  described  as  sensation  of  something  by  us 
(in  the  last  meaning  which  I  assigned  to  Mr  Mill's  *  sensation '). 
If  then  we  are  to  speak  of  possibility  of  sensation  (which  is 
really,  if  we  are  to  come  to  these  Aristotelian  abstractions,  the 
fact  of  general  or  potential  sensation  implying  the  possibility  of 
particular  or  actual  sensation),  I  should  describe  it  as  a  fact, 
implying  doubleness,  a  something  seeming  (or  felt)  and  a  some- 
thing to  which  it  seems  (or  which  feels),  and  also  implying 
characteredness  or  qualitiedness  in  each  member  of  the  double- 
ness. It  is  owing  to  these  characters  that  that  which  seems  or 
is  felt  seems  or  is  felt  as  it  does  seem  or  is  felt.     But  this  is  a 


I 


246 


INTELLECTUAL  AND   MORAL 


[chap. 


In 


:t 


t 


>  I  ( 


I  I 


rudimentary  or  embryonic  description  of  reality  in  general,  and 
possibility  of  sensation,  to  mean  anything  as  a  fact,  must  mean 
that.  Mr  Mills  using  the  term  ' possibility  of  sensation '  as  a 
description  of  the  external  world  seems  to  imply  that  after  all 
he  must  mean  by  sensation  what  I  will  venture  to  call  '  eye- 
work,'  '  ear- work/  &c.  as  distinct  from  the  feeling  of  perception : 
and  if  so,  we  have  the  old  difficulty  about  the  eye  and  ear  them- 
selves (or  nerves  and  brain  if  we  prefer  the  language),  which  are 
at  once  things  which  we  must  have  in  order  to  have  sensation,, 
and  yet  things  which  we  cannot  have  till  we  have  got  sensation. 

Mr  Mill  is  perhaps  led  to  the  describing  the  external  world 
thus  from  the  previous  Kantoidic  notion  of  the  thing  in  itself, 
unknown  substance,  or  nouTnenon:  it  is  an  abstractification  of 
that.  As  we  are  looking  out  from  ourselves,  we  are  to  under- 
stand that  beyond  the  sensations,  sensible  attributes,  or  phe- 
nomena, there  is,  not  indeed  a  something  unknown  of  which 
these  are  the  dress,  but  a  possibility  of  the  occurrence  of  these, 
which  possibility  is  the  reality.  My  criticism  just  now  is  to  the 
effect  that  the  possibility  of  this  occurrence  involves  something 
on  our  side  as  well  as  on  the  other,  and  therefore  cannot  serve 
to  describe  that  in  distinction  from  us.  As  I  began  with  saying, 
this  description  of  a  something  (to  call  it  a  something)  behind 
the  phenomena,  does  no  harm  (as  the  notion  of  a  thing  in  itself 
does)  and  it  may  possibly  do  some  good.  The  '  possibility '  of 
things  seeming  to  us  as  they  do,  I  should  be  more  inclined 
myself  to  describe,  in  language  which  I  have  frequently  used, 
as  the  reason  for  it :  by  this  '  reason '  I  mean  some  fact,  whatever 
it  is,  which  perhaps  may  not  be  known  to  us,  but  is  not  to  be 
supposed  (why  should  it  be  ?)  unknowable ;  nay,  which,  in  part 
at  any  rate,  is  already  undoubtedly  known  to  us. 

The  fact  of  things  '  seeming '  or  being  thought  and  known  in 
addition  to  their  *  being '  (if  indeed  their  being  is  anything  more 
than  a  portion  of  their  seeming)  is  looked  upon  in  one  of  two 
different  lights  by  those  philosophers  who  value  physical  science 
as  the  line  of  thought  in  which  most  of  advance  and  fresh 
knowledge  is  to  be  expected. 

One  of  these  lights  is  that  of  which  Mr  Mill's  view  may  be 
taken  as  an  instance.     It  is  a  view  in  which,  however  I  have 


11.] 


DIFFICULTIES   OF  MATERIALISM. 


247 


criticized  it,  I  to  a  certain  extent  concur.  Mr  Mill  has  banished 
most  carefully  from  his  logic  of  science  every  supposition  of  our 
being  concerned  with  mere  conceptions  or  notions  of  our  own : 
for  the  purpose  of  logic  we  are  concerned,  he  says,  with  things. 
But  afterwards  we  come  to  philosophy,  and  then  it  appears  that 
the  things  are  only  what  I  will  call  unknown  occasions  (I  use 
this  expression  for  '  possibilities,'  as  a  little  less  abstract)  of  sen- 
sation, and  all  the  variety  of  them  is  variety  of  sensation :  and 
since  eye,  ear,  nose,  are  among  these  things  or  occasions,  we 
must  not  mean  by  *  sensations,'  sensations  as  affections  of  these, 
but  sensations  as  feelings  which  we  feel,  that  is,  thoughts, 
conceptions,  notions  (for  these  are  only  different  names  of 
intellectual  feelings) :  things  at  last  are  conceptions  or  creations 
of  the  mind,  and  anything  they  may  be  besides,  so  far  as  we 
can  make  anything  of  them,  they  are  through  being  this. 

I  have  said  that  with  this  view,  I  to  a  considerable  extent 
concur:  things  are  supposed  to  he  in  the  first  instance,  this, 
their  phenomenal  being,  being  a  supposition  or  abstraction,  for 
the  making  of  which  we  forget,  for  the  time,  all  about  their 
seeming:  and  we  being  thus  simply  adstant,  what  we  know,  when 
we  know  anything,  is  simply  the  fact  which  is  going  on  in  the 
universe.     With  this  fact  is  all  our  business. 

But  then,  if  we  are  philosophers,  we  cannot  help  considering 
besides,  that  all  this,  which  we  call  being,  we  can  only  call  so  as 
seeming  to  us  to  be,  as  being  thought  by  us  as  being :  and  all 
physical  or  phenomenalist  being,  all  our  realization  or  realism, 
is  wrapt  up  of  necessity  in  a  vast  surrounding  idealism,  as  some 
would  call  it :  an  idealist  philosophy  sun'ounds  a  phenomenalist 
science. 

I  will  not  criticize  this  at  length  now  on  the  whole,  because 
the  consideration  of  it  will  at  various  times  recur.  It  seems  to 
me  to  be  right  or  wrong,  as  it  is  taken.  The  way  of  taking  it 
rightly  seems  to  me  to  be  the  consideration  of  our  thought 
itself  as  a  great  fact :  we  think  as  we  do  (by  which  thinking 
the  universe  is  suggested  as  given  to  us)  in  virtue  of  fact  going 
beyond  ourselves,  or  if  we  like  to  call  it  so,  antecedent  to 
ourselves — fact  of  which  all  our  knowledge  is  an  imperfect  and 
gradual  revelation  to  us.     I  think  that  in  this  way  we  may 


248 


INTELLECTUAL  AND  MORAL 


[chap. 


II.] 


DIFFICULTIES   OF  MATERIALISM. 


249 


H 


II 


consider  the  univei-se  as  true  and  real  as  well  as  we :  and  this 
is  what  I  call  rightly  taking  the  view  mentioned  above :  I  hope 
to  explain  it  more  fully.  Wrongly  taking  the  view  consists,  as 
I  think,  in  making  so  much  in  the  first  instance  of  the  being  of 
the  phenomenal  universe,  that  when  the  independence  of  this 
notion  is  undermined  by  the  superinduced  and  enwrapping 
idealism  (or  notion  of  seeming  and  thoughtness),  we  lose  all 
notion  of  h&ing  or  fact  altogether,  and  seem  to  be  in  a  world  of 
chimera  and  illusion,  or  at  least  in  a  world  where  there  is  no 
possible  way  to  distinguish  between  what  is  illusion  and  what 
is  not.  I  think  a  wrongly  taken  idealism  of  this  kind  does 
sometimes  go  with  a  very  pronounced  phenomenalism :  but  of 
this  another  time. 

By  the  second  light  in  which  the  *  seeming '  of  things  may  be 
viewed  in  relation  to  their  being,  I  meant  this.  Suppose  a 
physical  investigator  assuming  the  being  of  the  external  or 
phenomenal  world  not  only  as  a  fact  for  science  and  action — a 
fact,  the  existence  of  which,  as  a  fact,  is  capable  of  being 
afterwards  philosophized  upon,  interpreted,  qualified — but  as 
the  one  and  only  fact  which  he  means  to  recognize,  and  all 
philosophizing  about  which  he  sets  down  beforehand  as  nu- 
gatory: supposing  him  to  say,  'From  this  my  point  of  view 
I  mean  to  discuss  knowledge  and  thought,  or  the  seeming  of  the 
universe  and  things  in  it  to  certain  particular  things  in  it :  this 
is  a  fact  or  phenomenon  of  this  my  universe,  and  you  will  see 
that  I  can  treat  it  as  such.' 

In  this  case,  what  he  does  is  to  treat  the  phenomenon  of 
thought  or  knowledge  as  a  portion  of  the  wider  phenomenon  of 
*life.'  The  support  of  life,  speaking  roughly,  is  by  means  of 
action  either  spontaneous  or  volitional,  and  to  volitional  action 
there  goes,  as  an  ingredient  or  preliminary,  thought  or  knowledge 
of  some  kind.  Knowledge  is  in  this  view  a  part  of  action  for  a 
purpose :  the  beginning  and  foundation  of  it. 

This  line  of  thought  is  as  important  in  its  way  as  the  other, 
and  though  I  have,  with  a  view  to  bring  it  more  into  relief, 
represented  it  above  as  taken  (what  I  should  call)  wrongly,  it 
need  not  necessarily  be  so.  I  will  not  dwell  upon  it,  for  I  have 
only  alluded   to  these   two  lights   in   which   the  relation   of 


thought  to  being  may  appear  (in  the  one  of  which  being  is  more 
or  less  dependent  on  thought,  in  the  other  thought  is  an  accident 
or  particular  of  being)  to  compare  them  together.  But  I  will 
say  one  word  on  the  difldculties  of  it. 

The  great  intellectual  difficulty  I  have  spoken  about,  and 
shall  not  dwell  on  more,  but  it  is  accompanied  by  an  equal 
moral  difficulty. 

We  do  not  know  much  about  the  intelligence  of  the  inferior 
animals,  but  in  any  case,  their  intelligence  seems  all  absorbed 
in  their  action,  and  to  go  to  the  support  of  their  life. 

But  with  us,  men,  this  is  not  so :  we  think  about  the 
universe  in  general,  and  about  things  altogether  in  a  far  wider 
way  and  view  than  we  can  at  all  apply  to  practice,  or  than  we 
can  at  all  consider  (taking  our  analogy  from  other  facts  of  the 
universe)  to  be  simply  a  natural  fact  of  our  phenomenal  life, 
serving  us  to  guide  our  actions,  as  the  animal's  intelligence 
serves  him,  and  as  our  stomach  serves  us  to  digest,  or  our  eye 
to  see. 

This  generalness  of  our  intelligence  brings  strongly  before 
us  the  intellectual  difficulty  of  which  I  have  abundantly  spoken. 
When  we  think  of  our  thinking,  not  only  do  we  find  it  going 
beyond  all  reasonable  relation  to  the  support  of  our  physical 
being,  but  we  find  that,  as  thinking,  it  alters  the  whole  universe 
to  us :  we  should  not  talk  of  anything  being,  were  it  not  for  our 
thinking. 

The  moral  difficulty  is  this.  The  physical  philosopher  who 
treats  thought  or  knowledge  as  a  part  of  life,  cannot  I  think 
but  look  upon  developed  human  thought  as  something  abnormal, 
something  out  of  relation  with  that  physical  universe,  of  which 
he  is  determined  to  make  it  a  part,  something,  in  a  manner, 
unmeaning.  Whether  for  happiness,  we  should  be  better  with- 
out it,  he  might  find  it  difficult  to  say:  it  gives  us  many 
pleasures,  and  gives  us  many  pains:  but,  strange  as  it  may 
seem,  I  think  he  would  have  to  say  that  as  reasonable  creatures 
we  should  be  better  without  it:  we  stretch  our  thoughts  into 
infinite  space  and  infinite  time,  while  our  life  is  all  limited  and 
confined,  and  from  his  point  of  view,  surely  all  this  must  be  a 
sort   of  superfluous   (7r6/3tTT09),  idle,  imagination  or  illusion. 


250 


DIFFICULTIES   OF  MATERIALISM. 


[chap.  II. 


And  so  he  will  very  likely  do  that  which  I  have  spoken  of  before 
(which  some,  it  seems  to  me  wrongly,  do  in  the  name  of  religion, 
and  some,  equally  wrongly,  in  the  name  of  materialism),  browbeat 
our  thought  and  intelligence;  say  it  is  all  that  'forward  and 
intrusive  faculty,  imagination  ^ ' ;  that  we  must  keep  at  home 
and  on  the  ground,  and  cease  generalizing  and  expatiating. 
Now  it  is  not  at  all  from  the  point  of  view  of  sentiment  as 
occasion  of  declamation  that  I  think  all  this  is  wrong  but  from 
the  point  of  view  of  fact.  Knowledge  is  a  mode  of  thought  and 
is  formed  from  imagination,  and  in  this  thought  and  imagination 
I  see,  perhaps  not  knowledge  itself,  but  its  germ  and  material : 
that  we  do  think  in  these  various  ways,  seems  to  me  a  fact  at 
least  as  important  as  the  existence  of  the  phenomenal  world : 
to  say  that  all  our  thinking  so  is  folly,  seems  to  me  simply  what 
I  have  called  a  shutting  our  eyes  to  so  much  important  fact. 

If  then  we  start  with  the  phenomenal  universe,  we  find 
thought  or  knowledge  by  far  the  most  important  fact  in  it, 
a  fact  taking  such  dimensions,  as  to  force  us  to  do  one  of  two 
things:  either  (so  to  speak)  to  let  it  out  of  the  phenomenal 
universe,  in  which  case  we  must  say,  'The  phenomenal  universe 
then  is  not  all,  there  is  something  besides  it':  or  else  to  expand 
the  dimensions  of  the  phenomenal  universe  till  it  becomes  no 
longer  phenomenal,  i.e.  simply  what  is  in  communication  with 
our  corporeal  organization :  or,  which  is  the  same  thing,  to 
expand  our  notion  of  our  *  life,'  till  we  mean  by  it  something  no 
longer  answering  to  the  analogy  of  life  as  lived  by  plants  and 
animals,  but  including  this,  and  going  far  beyond  it.  If  we 
expand  in  this  way  our  notion  of  our  life,  then  we  may  consider 
all  our  possible  thought  and  knowledge  subordinate  to  it. 

It  is  thus  that  I  mean  that  we  may  think  wrongly,  or  think 
rightly,  of  knowledge  or  thought  as  a  part  of  the  universe. 

1  Batler,  Analogy^  ch.  i. 


CHAPTER  III. 


THE   PROVERSE   AND    RETROVERSE   OF   SENSATION. 


It  seems  to  me  that  some  of  the  difficulties  as  to  the 
relation  of  thought  and  matter  may  be  looked  at  more  clearly 
by  the  following  use  of  the  terms  '  retroverse '  and  '  proverse.' 

In  the  sense  of  sight,  which  I  will  take  as  an  instance,  there 
is  an  affection  of  the  nerves  and  brain,  the  nature  of  which  we 
understand,  so  far  as  we  do  understand  it,  by  anatomy.  Cor- 
respondingly, or  at  least  contemporaneously,  with  this,  there  is 
a  feeling,  or  as  some  would  say,  a  consciousness,  which  we 
should  describe  in  words  as  the  perception  of  something,  a 
prospect  or  a  picture.  These  are  two  contemporaneous  facts, 
entirely,  as  facts,  dissimilar,  or  if  we  prefer  so  to  speak,  one 
fact  composed  of  two  entirely  dissimilar  portions.  I  shall  call 
the  one  of  them  the  proverse^  the  other  the  retroverse,  of  the 
fact :  and  the  latter  of  these  terms  is  that  which  will  come  into 
use  the  most  frequently,  because  by  the  'proverse'  I  shall  mean 
in  general  the  fact,  whatever  it  is,  which  is  being  spoken  about, 
and  by  the  retroverse  the  corresponding  fact  on  the  side  of 
mind,  or  feeling,  or  consciousness,  or  whatever  we  may  call  it. 

Of  the  fact  then  which  is  commonly,  but  often  very  loosely 
and  ambiguously,  called  sensation,  the  proverse  is  the  physio- 
logical or  anatomical  portion — what  I  have  in  another  place 
called,  the  communication^  between  the  nerves  of  our  body  and 
the  natural  agents  of  the  phenomenal  universe.  The  retroverse 
of  this  is  our  particular  feeling,  whatever  it  is,  which  goes  with 
the  particular  communication.  The  retroverse  of  the  communi- 
cation between  the  moving  substance  (or  undulating  ether)  light 
and  the  nerves  connected  with  the  eye,  is  the  imagination  of  a 

1  Expl.  pp.  7, 19,  &c. 


252       THE   PROVERSE  AND  RETROVERSE  OF  SENSATION.    [CHAP. 

coloured  picture  :  and  so  for  the  other  senses.  The  complete 
retro  verse  of  the  whole  communication  between  our  corporeal 
organization  and  the  phenomenal  universe,  is  the  conception 
which  we  have  of  that  universe  as  one,  we  forming  a  part  of  it. 

I  have  already  spoken  of  the  complication  which  there  is,  of 
necessity,  in  this.  In  what  is  said  above,  there  is  a  sort  of 
fundamental  fallacy,  or  logical  circle,  which  we  cannot  avoid. 
The  facts  which  constitute  the  proverse  are  only  facts  to  us,  as 
a  portion  of  what,  again,  is  only  fact  to  us  in  virtue  of  the 
retroverse.  This  retroverse,  which  is  a  thought,  conception,  or 
imagination,  has  an  object  which  is  the  phenomenal  universe  or 
something  belonging  to  it,  and  has  also  a  proverse,  or  accom- 
panying fact  in  this  phenomenal  universe.  But  this  proverse 
is  no  further  fact  than  as  the  entire  object  of  the  retroverse  is 
fact :  so  that  we  have,  in  the  manner  which  I  have  spoken  of 
already,  a  return  of  our  view  of  the  matter  into  itself.  We  can 
only  avoid  this  by  assuming  the  only  certain  fact  to  be  the 
conception  or  conceiving :  the  nature  of  this  is  to  suggest  its 
object  as  fact  also,  and  in  this  object  we  find  a  certain  particular 
portion  of  fact,  which  is  connected  with  the  conceiving  in  a 
particular  manner,  viz.  as  what  I  have  called  proverse  to  it,  as 
retroverse.  Whether  this  is  the  proper  way  of  avoiding  the 
complication  is  what  1  am  not  discussing  now. 

The  proverse  fact  of  sensation  consists  of  various  phenomena 
of  the  nerves  and  brain  as  they  are  objects  subjected  to  our 
physical  obsei-vation.  The  retroverse  fact  of  it  is  of  a  double 
nature,  in  a  way  which  I  have  already  described  :  that  is,  it 
consists  of  sentience  and  perception.  By  sentience  I  mean  the 
feeling  of  pleasure  or  pain,  the  feeling  of  something  as  liking  it 
or  disliking  it.  By  perception  (which  I  should  prefer  to  call 
circmnperception,  because,  in  contrast  to  sentience,  it  carries 
our  thoughts  out  and  away  from  ourselves)  I  mean  conception 
and  imagination  with  the  added  assumption  (and  it  is  to  be 
supposed,  fact)  of  reality,  correspondingly  (or  contemporaneously) 
with  the  various  particulars  of  the  proverse  fact. 

The  retroverse  of  some  communications  of  our  nerves  with 
matter  beyond  them,  as  of  a  prick  with  a  pin,  is  sentience 
almost  without  perception  :  of  some,  as  of  the  application  of  a 
sweet-smelling  flower  to  the  nose,  sentience  and  perception 


III.]        THE   PROVERSE   AND  RETROVERSE   OF  SENSATION.        253 

mixed :   of  some,  as  of  movements  of  our  arms  and  objects  by 
them,  little  other  than  perception. 

Before  speaking  of  the  application  of  the  terms  in  this  use 
of  them  to  the  relation  between  the  physical  universe  and 
thought,  I  will  speak  of  another  use  of  the  terms,  analogous  to 
the  above,  which  I  hope  will  not  cause  confusion. 

Say  the  fact  which  we  are  considering  is  the  physical  state 
of  our  nerves  in  communication  with  matter  without ;  then  the 
retroverse  of  this  is  what  I  have  described.  But  say  the  fact 
which  we  are  considering  is  the  phenomenal  universe  itself,  and 
that  we  begin  with  simply  saying,  *  The  phenomenal  universe 
exists,'  'exists,'  that  is,  in  the  manner  in  which  the  things  and 
facts  of  the  phenomenal  universe  exist,  is  what  they  are, 
does  what  they  do.  Let  us  suppose  that  we  begin  with  the 
phenomenal  universe,  because  we  consider  existence  and  it  as 
co-extensive  terms.  Now,  a  portion  of  the  universe,  as  thus 
conceived,  is  all  that  nervous  modification  which  has  itself  a 
retroverse  in  the  manner  I  described  :  but  just  as  this  has  thus 
a  retroverse  to  itself,  so  it  may  itself  be  considered  a  retroverse 
to  the  universe  conceived  as  above.  Our  sight  of  the  universe 
is  what  it  is  correspondingly  to  the  optic  nerve  being  what  it 
is :  but  just  in  the  same  way  the  optic  nerve  is  what  it  is, 
correspondingly  to  light  being  what  it  is.  Light,  vibration  of 
air,  exhalations  which,  communicating  with  our  nose,  make 
smell — these  are  facts,  like  any  other  of  the  million  facts  of  the 
universe — facts  of  the  first  order,  if  we  like  to  call  them  so,  in 
our  present  view  of  the  universe :  there  might  have  been  no 
life  or  thought  anywhere  in  the  universe,  and  they  would  have 
been  facts  still.  Then  we  find,  in  the  life  or  organized  portion 
of  the  universe,  these  facts  of  the  first  order  reflected  or 
answered  to,  if  we  may  so  speak,  in  facts  of  the  second  order : 
light  is  answered  to  by  an  optic  nerve,  vibration  of  the  air  by 
an  auditory  nerve :  there  is  a  universe  of  nervous  modification 
corresponding  to  the  universe  of  fact  of  the  first  order,  a 
retroverse  of  it,  after  a  manner  analogous  to  that  manner  in 
which  conception  and  perception  are  the  retroverse  of  this 
modification. 

I  will  return  now  to  speak  of  the  terms  'proverse*  and 
'retroverse*  in  the  first  of  the  uses  mentioned. 


254   THE  PRO  VERSE  AND  RETROVERSE  OF  SENSATION.  [CHAP. 

It  seems  to  me  quite  possible  that  physiological  research 
might  make  out  our  nervous  organization  to  be  of  the  following 
nature ;  brain,  with  the  two  sets  of  nerves,  viz.,  of  sensation  and 
of  voluntary  motion  starting  from  it :  the  brain  a  source  of  force, 
but  of  force  communicable  with,  and  therefore  to  a  certain 
extent  of  the  same  nature  as,  the  existing  physical  forces  of  the 
universe :  this  force  supported  by  corporeal  nutrition  :  and  again 
a  special  adaptation  of  the  nerves  of  sensation  to  particular 
physical  agents.     We  should  then  have  the  brain  with  the  two 
sets  of  nerves  starting  from  it,  both  sets  in  a  manner  alive  and 
in  action :   we  might  call  for  the  moment  the  sensor  nerves 
*  receptive,'  the  motor  'editive.'     Both  sets  of  nerves  are  then 
at  work  in  their  way:   the  editive  transmitting  the  force  from 
the  brain,  and  with  it  contracting  the  muscles,  which  is  our 
immediate  or  proper  motion:   the  receptive  seeking  out,  as  it 
were,  for  something  to  receive.    When  the  proper  natural  agents 
present    themselves    and   communicate,   the   receptive   nerves 
receive  and  transmit  the  modifications  produced  in  them  by 
this   to  the   brain   and   all  over  the  nerves:    their  receptive 
modifications    or    movements   may   be   supposed   to   associate 
themselves  with  the  editive  modifications  of  the  other  nerves, 
and  so  a  regular  or  systematic  or  '  occasioned '  contraction  of  the 
muscles  or  movement  of  the  limbs  be  produced.     And  all  this 
may  be  conceived  to  be  one  force  in  the  nerves  analogous  in 
some  measure  to  electricity,  galvanism,  &c.,  but  still  peculiar : 
I  will  call  it  *  nervicity  * :  it  is  generated  by  the  brain,  supported 
by  corporeal  nutrition,  has  the  occasions  of  its  energizing  sup- 
plied to  it  by  the  receptive  nerves,  and  passes  out  through  the 
editive  nerves  into  contraction  of  the  muscles,  where  it  becomes 
(or  produces)  mechanical  movement. 

I  have  not  cared  to  be  very  particular  in  this  description, 
which  I  intend  to  represent  in  a  general  way  the  opinions 
which  I  conceive  to  be  those  of  Mr  Bain  on  the  subject,  and 
perhaps,  in  a  less  degree,  of  some  others.  The  purpose  for 
which  I  make  the  description  is  the  following: 

All  the  above  (supposing  it  physiologically  made  out,  which 
I  can  quite  suppose  it  might  be)  would  be  to  me  what  I  have 
called  the  '  proverse '  of  a  double  or  conjoint  fact,  to  which  there 
was  a  'retroverse'  of  equal  importance.     It  is  this  retroverse 


III.]        THE   PROVERSE   AND  RETROVERSE   OF  SENSATION.        255 

which  all  the  various  terms  belonging  to  what  we  call '  mind ' 
express.  The  retroverse  of  the  more  simple  action  of  the  recep- 
tive nerves  is  that  which  we  call  *  perception ' ;  the  retroverse  of 
this,  persisting  after  the  communication  with  the  natural  agents 
is  past,  is  what  we  call '  imagination ' ;  the  retroverse  of  the  more 
complicated  and  internal  action  (so  we  may  suppose)  of  the 
same  nerves  is  what  we  may  call  '  conception.'  Again,  in  the 
manner  which  I  have  mentioned,  there  is  another  kind  of 
retroverse  of  disturbance  of  nerves,  which  I  have  called  '  senti- 
ence,' feeling  of  pleasure  or  pain,  liking  or  disliking :  and  again 
still,  the  retroverse  of  the  regular,  occasioned,  systematic  action 
of  the  editive  nerves  in  contracting  the  muscles,  &c.,  is  what  we 
call   Will  or  volition. 

The  use  of  this  manner  of  speaking  is  not  at  all  to  give  an 

apparent  account  of  what  is  not  really  accounted  for,  but  the 

opposite,  viz.  to  obviate  the  doing  of  this  in  a  wrong  way. 

When  it  is  said,  e.g.,  that  impression  of  light  on  the  eye  and 

optic  nerve  produces  sight  or  perception,  I  am  always  rather  at 

a  loss  what   is   meant.     Supposing  by  *  produces'  we   mean 

'generates'   in   any  way  after   the   analogy   of  generation   of 

organised  beings,  a  motion  or  new  combination  of  elements, 

after  the  analogy  of  chemistry,  or  anything  of  that  sort:   or 

supposing  we  simply  mean,  '  is  followed  by,'  after  the  regular 

laws  and  course  of  nature — what  are  the  laws  and  course  of 

nature   applicable   to   this?     We   are   making  nature  for  the 

occasion:    we   have   no   analogy  in   nature  for  any  supposed 

'  production '  of  this  kind.     Between  physical  modifications  of  a 

nerve  (say  'vibrations')  and  what  we  call  'conception '  there  is 

an  absolute  heterogeneity,  or  in  fact  a  want  of  relation  going 

on  beyond  heterogeneity.     And  yet  there  is  a  correspondence, 

in  time  if  in  nothing  else :  but  it  is  more  than  this,  because, 

according  to  what  the  one  is,  so  is  the  other:   this  is  what 

I  have  endeavoured  to  express  by  the  term  'retroverse.'     The 

two  things  belong  to  different  worlds  or  regions,  and  yet  bear 

a  relation  the  one  to  the  other  corresponding  to  the  relation 

between  the  different  worlds  or  regions. 

Of  course  if  we  say,  on  the  one  side,  that  it  is  wrong  to 
describe  material  impression  as  '  producing '  conception,  so  we 
must  say  on  the  other,  that  it  is  wrong  to  describe  conception 


256        THE  PRO  VERSE   AND  RETROVERSE   OF  SENSATION.    [CHAP. 

or  thought  as  '  producing '  mechanical  motion.  Upon  the 
whole,  I  think  the  sjnrit  of  professing  materialism  consists, 
more  than  in  anything  else,  in  the  being  broadly  awake  to  this 
latter  truth,  while  the  former,  which  corresponds  with  it,  is 
looked  on  as  of  trifling  importance.  '  Volition '  is  looked  upon 
as  the  result  of  physical,  nervous  modification,  because  it  is  said, 
with  truth  so  far  as  it  goes.  Nothing  but  force  can  produce  force 
or  movement.  But  in  the  meantime  no  notice  of  the  same 
kind  is  given  to  the  consideration,  that  the  appulse  of  light  to 
the  eye  is  followed  by  that  ultra-physical  fact  which  we  call 
sight  or  perception :  or  rather,  this  latter  fact  is  considered  to 
be  physical,  a  part  of  the  phenomenal  universe,  because  it  is 
supposed  to  be  produced  by  the  appulse  of  the  light,  while  any 
process  in  the  reverse  direction,  of  production  of  mechanical 
eflfort  by  anything  not  mechanical,  is  considered  absurd. 

The  reason  why  the  treatment  of  the  matter,  in  some  way 
such  as  that  in  which  I  have  here  treated  it,  seems  to  me  of 
importance,  is  this :  that  that  part  of  the  entire  fact  which  I 
have  called  the '  retro  verse '  is  of  more  importance  than  we  should 
judge  from  considering  the  nature  of  the  proverse,  and  is  not  to 
be  considered  a  simple  accompaniment  of  this  latter,  of  such  a 
nature  as  to  be  thought  perhaps  even  of  less  importance  than  it. 

If  one  could  for  a  moment  imagine  oneself,  the  subject  or 
thinker,  placed  exactly  in  the  middle  of  this  fact  of  sensation, 
between  the  proverse  and  the  retroverse  of  it,  and  looking 
alternately  through  the  one  and  the  other  to  see  what  we  see  : 
it  is  through  the  retroverse  we  should  see  the  universe  as  we 
do  see  it,  not  through  the  proverse.  Of  course  this  rather  bold 
imagination  must  be  dealt  with  carefully,  lest  it  should  mislead 
us :  I  am  obliged  to  talk  of  seeing y  but  that,  it  must  be  borne 
in  mind,  is  metaphor. 

I  avoid  in  general  the  word  '  conscious,'  just  because  of  the 
ambiguity  attaching  to  it  on  account  of  the  fact  now  before  us. 
In  what  I  am  saying  now,  however,  I  will  use  it. 

Suppose  that  there  exists,  correspondingly  with  sensation 
and  volition,  a  current  (or  it  may  be  vibrations),  or  something 
similar,  through  the  nerves  and  brain  in  the  manner  which  above, 
following  chiefly  Mr  Bain,  I  have  supposed.  This  we  know 
physiologically.      It  is  the  proverse  of  the  fact  of  sensation, 


III.]        THE  PROVERSE  AND  RETROVERSE  OF  SENSATION.         257 

the  actual  physical  portion  of  it.  But  if  our  thought  were 
directed  herCy  if  this  were  what  our  consciousness  was  directed 
to,  we  should  not  know  the  universe  as  we  do  know  it,  or 
anything  like  it.  Immediate  knowledge  on  our  part  of  a 
tingling  or  thrilling  in  an  optic  nerve  and  of  a  corresponding 
set  of  contractions  in  the  muscles  of  the  eye  would  not  be 
sight :  so  far  from  it,  if  we  had  such  an  immediate  knowledge 
or  consciousness  and  our  attention  was  directed  to  it,  it  would 
effectually  prevent  sight.  What  there  is  immediate  knowledge 
or  consciousness  of,  is  the  double  retroverse,  as  I  have  described 
it,  of  the  fact  of  sensation — it  is  merely  a  question  of  the  use 
of  the  word  *  consciousness '  whether  we  say  there  is  conscious- 
ness of  this,  or  this  is  the  consciousness — viz.  of  sentience  (or 
feeling  of  pleasure  or  pain),  and  of  the  exertion  of  volition, 
which  develops  itself  into  the  notions  of  space  and  solidity. 
In  the  case  of  the  eye  there  is  (speaking  shortly)  pleasure 
felt  in  the  colour,  and  there  is  felt  volitional  movement  of 
the  eye  to  follow  it.  And  here  what  I  want  observed  is,  that 
our  consciousness  of  the  retroverse  is  a  fact  out  of  all  proportion 
important  in  comparison  with  what  our  consciousness  of  the 
proverse  would  be :  and  I  think  it  is  the  not  bearing  this  in 
mind  which  makes  another  particular  of  what  I  have  called 
the  spirit  of  materialism.  The  phenomenal  universe  is  some- 
thing very  vast :  even  the  whole  life  in  it  constitutes  but  a 
small  portion  of  it,  and  human  life  only  a  portion  of  this,  and 
these  modifications  of  the  human  nerves  are  therefore  only  one 
incidental  fact  of  it,  and  if  this  were  what  we  were  conscious  of, 
it  would  not  be  anything  we  might  say  very  important.  But 
what  we  are  conscious  of,  in  being  as  above  conscious  of  the 
retroverse,  is  not  of  an  incidental  fact  in  the  universe,  but  of 
something  which  affects  the  being  of  the  universe  itself.  In 
being  conscious  of  our  volition,  and  aware  that  it  is  only  the 
existence  of  this  which  makes  us  speak  of  there  being  such  a 
thing  as  the  phenomenal  universe,  we  ask  ourselves,  are  we 
right  in  thinking  thus  ?  Our  thought  takes  a  position  of 
superiority  to  phenomenal  being:  and  in  reference  to  sentience, 
it  takes  a  position  of  more  important  superiority  still.  Liking 
and  disliking  begins  to  open   the   door   to   criticism,  to   the 

M.  17 


258   THE  PROVERSE  AND  RETROVERSE  OF  SENSATION.    [CHAP.  III. 

question,  not  as  above,  what  is  true  or  fact,  but  what  is  good 
or  desirable,  and  thus  to  ends  and  rules  of  action. 

I  have  always  objected  to  the  saying,  that  the  universe  is 
made  up  of  facts  of  mind  and  facts  of  matter,  because  when  this 
is  said,  it  is  scarcely  possible  but  that  what  is  meant  is  the 
phenomenal  universe,  i.e.  the  universe  as  it  presents  itself  to 
our  perception,  but  supposed  to  be  more  or  less  independent  of 
it :  and  if  this  is  so,  by  counting  facts  of  mind  constituents  of  a 
universe  like  this,  we  are  just  giving  to  them  that  character  of 
minor  importance,  of  quasi-accidentalness,  which  I  have  been 
deprecating.  It  may  indeed  be  said  after  this  that  the  universe 
itself  is  one  great  fact  of  mind  or  sensation.  If  this  is  said,  the 
matter  is  set  right,  on  one  condition  :  that  by  facts  of  mind  in 
the  first  case,  when  they  are  spoken  of  as  joint  constituents, 
with  facts  of  matter,  of  the  universe,  we  mean  facts  of  mind 
looked  at  without  full  attention  to  the  import  of  the  expression 
*mind,*  thought  as  one  constituent  of  life,  as  life  is  on  our 
globe.  Then,  if  we  give  full  attention  to  what  we  mean  by  the 
term  *  mind '  (or  we  might  say  '  thought '  or  '  sensation '),  we 
must  alter  our  language,  and  say  the  universe  is  a  fact  of  mind, 
the  sa3dng  which  would  have  no  significance  unless  we  consider 
*mind'  to  be  more  extensive  in  meaning  than,  and  prior  in 
meaning  to,  the  universe.  When  Mr  Mill  describes  '  things '  as 
*  possibilities  of  sensation  '  he  must  consider  *  sensation '  a  more 
primary  fact  than  'things':  and  since  organs  of  sensation,  or 
the  proverse  of  the  fact  of  sensation,  are  themselves  but  things, 
it  must  be  the  retroverse  of  the  fact,  or  the  thought,  which  is 
thus  more  primary. 

The  philosophy,  which  there  is  more  or  less  in  the  thought 
of  all  who  think  even  in  the  least  degree,  appears  to  me  fairly 
shared,  as  it  exists  now  and  has  existed,  between  what  I  have 
called  the  spirit  of  materialism  and  the  counter-spirit.  All 
sensation,  perception,  conception,  consciousness,  has  got,  it 
would  appear  probable  to  me,  its  retroverse  and  proverse,  its 
soul  and  body,  its  portion  in  the  phenomenal  universe  and  its 
portion  in  that  region  of  thought  in  which  the  existence  of  the 
phenomenal  universe  is  but  one  phenomenon. 


BOOK  IV. 


FFantcon    MerpoN    ANGpconoc. 


17—2 


CHAPTER  I. 


DISCUSSION  AS  TO    THE  MEANING  OF  THE  PROTAGOREAN 

MAXIM. 

In  the  controversy  between  Mr  Cope  and  Mr  Grote^  as  to 
the  meaning  of  the  maxim  iravrayv  /nerpov  dv6p(07ro<;,  the 
former  endeavours  to  prove  that  the  latter  is  unjust  towards 
Plato  in  charging  him  with  misrepresenting  Protagoras,  main- 
taining on  the  contrary  that  Plato's  argument  in  the  Theaetetus 
is  based  upon  a  right  understanding  of  what  Protagoras  did 
mean,  and  that  Protagoras  is  justly  condemned. 

Doubtless  there  is  force  in  what  Mr  Cope  urges^  'Was  not 
Plato  more  likely  to  understand  what  Protagoras  meant  than 
Mr  Grote — Plato  with  the  book  before  him;  Mr  Grote  some- 
where about  2265  years  afterwards  with  no  other  authority 
than  what  he  finds  in  Plato,  asserting  that  what  he  does  find 
there  must  be  incorrect'?  We  cannot  deny  that  the  fact  that 
Plato  had  the  book  before  him  and  was  himself  engaged  in  the 
actual  controversies  of  times  following  close  on  Protagoras, 
combined  with  his  extraordinary  philosophical  powers,  makes 
the  probability  very  great  that  he  would  have  understood 
Protagoras.  At  the  same  time  a  glance  at  the  controversies 
going  on  at  this  present  moment  as  to  the  meaning  of  late  and 
living  philosophers,  is  enough  to  show  that  the  inference  is  far 
from  certain:  and  the  idea,  that  it  is  absurd  for  Mr  Grote 
now,  with  little  to  go  on  but  Plato's  own  arguments  about 
Protagoras,  to  correct  Plato's  view  of  Protagoras,  is  a  condemna- 
tion of  criticism  altogether.    Mr  Grote  does  in  regard  of  Plato's 

*  See  Cope's  Theaetetus  and  Mr  Grote's  Criticisms,  1866. 
2  p.  15. 


262 


DISCUSSION  AS  TO  THE  MEANING 


[chap. 


philosophy  what  he  did  in  regard  of  the  history  of  the  Grecian 
historians.  Criticism  of  ancient  writings,  so  far  as  it  goes 
beyond  words  to  meaning  and  subject,  takes  as  its  basis  the 
supposition  that  many  things  in  the  ancient  world  have  been 
misunderstood  by  former  generations,  the  true  intelligence  of 
them  having  been  reserved  for  our  time :  and  it  is  the  same 
in  the  case  of  philosophy. 

The  probability  then,  which  is  certainly  great,  that  Plato 
will  have  rightly  interpreted  Protagoras  may  be  rebutted  by 
showing  reason  on  the  other  side ;  and  Mr  Grote  conceives  that 
he  has  succeeded  in  producing  such  reason. 

In  the  dialogue  Socrates  asks  Theaetetus  what  knowledge 
is,  and  receives  for  answer  that  it  is  ataOrja-tf;,  which  we  will 
call  for  the  present  *  sensation.'  Socrates  replies  in  effect,  'This 
is  the  same  doctrine  as  that  of  Protagoras,  that  man  is  the 
measure  of  all  things,  and  the  same  doctrine  also  as  that  of 
certain  Ionic  philosophers,  that  all  things  are  in  a  perpetual 
flux  and  flow.  He  then  proceeds  to  treat  the  three  doctrines 
as  substantially  the  same,  and  argues  against  all  in  conjunction. 

Mr  Grote's  case  is  that  each  of  the  three  doctrines  is 
in  itself  independent  of  the  others,  though  they  may  be 
tenable  in  conjunction;  that  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose 
that  Protagoras  joined  either  of  the  other  doctrines  with 
his  own  doctrine  of  Hoino  Menmra ;  that  this  latter  doctrine 
has  a  most  important  meaning,  and  is  in  a  high  degree 
true,  in  a  sense  quite  diff'erent  from  that  attributed  to  it  by 
Plato,  when  he  combines  it  with  the  other  doctrines. 

Mr  Grote  supports  his  case  by  giving  what,  in  his  view,  is 
the  simple  and  natural  meaning  of  the  words  of  Protagoras : 
this  meaning,  he  says,  has  no  reference  to  sensation  or  to  flux 
and  flow:  what  it  expresses  is  generally  the  relativeness  of 
knowledge,  or  more  particularly ^  what  comes  to  the  same  thing, 
*  the  autonomy  of  each  individual  mind,'  '  equal  right  of  private 
judgment  to  each  man  for  himselP.'  The  Protagorean ' measured 
by'  is  explained  by  Mr  Grote  as  equivalent  to  'relative  to,'  and 
the  relativeness  he  explains  as  above. 

1  Grote's  Plato,  Vol.  ii.,  pp.  362,  388. 


I-] 


OF  THE  PROTAGOREAN  MAXIM. 


263 


There  is  indeed,  it  is  to  be  observed,  a  very  long  interval 
between  the  general  doctrine  of  relativity  (which  Mr  Grote 
begins  with  understanding  Protagoras  to  express)  and  the  more 
particular  doctrine  which  he  proceeds  to  connect  with  it. 
There  are  many  steps  necessary  between  the  very  abstract 
philosophical  notion  that  a  perceiving  subject  is  necessarily 
conceived  when  we  conceive  an  object,  and  the  doctrine  of 
individual  judgment,  or  every  one  being  his  own  measure  of 
truth  and  en-or.  To  tell  what  a  philosopher  meant  from  a 
single  sentence,  however  pointed  and  deliberate,  which  is  all  we 
have  to  go  upon  in  the  case  of  Protagoras,  seems  to  me  an 
insoluble  problem.  Very  often,  the  more  pointedly  a  thing  is 
asserted  quasi-paradoxically,  the  more  the  context  involves 
explanations,  which  from  the  dictum  itself  we  might  never 
have  dreamt  of  Protagoras  himself  is  to  us  a  name,  and  little 
more — a  man  of  one  saying:  what  we  have  in  the  Theaetetus  is 
a  Platonic  Protagoras,  a  dramatic  creation  of  Plato.  It  is 
a  perfectly  legitimate  supposition  for  criticism,  that  Protagoras, 
like  many  others,  was  a  philosopher  misunderstood  from  very 
early  times.  For  that  philosophers  understand  each  other  in 
the  most  various  manners,  and  therefore  to  a  great  extent 
misunderstand  each  other,  can  surprise  no  one  who  reads  the 
history  of  philosophy.  We  know  nothing  about  Plato  from 
which  to  judge  how  far  he  was  likely  to  do,  what  philosophers 
do  not  often  do  now,  i.e,  use  pains  and  effort  to  master  an 
opposite  view  to  his  own,  and  see  things  from  his  opponent's 
point  of  view.  Hence  it  is  quite  possible  that  Mr  Grote's 
Protagoras  now  may  be  a  better  likeness  than  Plato's;  and  may 
give  us  more  the  actual  philosopher,  than  Plato's.  I  am  not 
myself  disposed  to  think  it  is  so,  because  there  does  not  seem 
to  me  evidence  to  rebut  the  before  mentioned  probability,  that 
Plato  and  those  for  whom  his  dialogue  was  written,  having 
Protagoras'  context  before  them,  will  have  understood  him 
better  than  we,  who  have  only  the  solitary  sentence. 

It  is  on  this  probability  that  Mr  Cope  rests  his  case,  and  he 
supports  it  by  endeavouring  to  show  that  others  in  old  times, 
as  Aristotle,  Diogenes  Laertius,  Sextus  Empiricus,  and  Sim- 
plicius  understood  Protagoras  in  the  same  manner. 


264 


DISCUSSION   AS  TO  THE  MEANING 


[chap. 


In  qualification  of  this  line  of  argument,  it  ought  to  be 
kept  in  mind  that  Plato's  manner  of  understanding  Protagoras 
was  very  likely  to  govern,  in  some  degree,  the  manner  of 
understanding  him  afterwards,  even  possibly  in  the  case  of 
Aristotle :  not  that  Aristotle  disliked  differing  from  Plato,  but 
that  we  cannot  tell  how  much  attention  he  may  have  given  to 
Protagoras. 

Mr  Cope  quotes  Mr  Grote  as  saying,  that  the  Theaetetus  is 
the  first  attempt  of  any  importance  to  analyze  and  classify 
psychological  phenomena,  and  fortifies  this  view  of  Mr  Grote's 
by  some  very  interesting  historical  remarks  of  his  own.  In  the 
view  of  both  it  would  appear  that,  at  the  time  when  Protagoras 
wrote,  aiaOrjai^;  was  undistinguished,  scientifically,  from  other 
mental  operations,  supposing  such  to  exist.  But  to  the  extent 
to  which  we  consider  this  to  have  been  the  case,  Plato's  saying 
that  Protagoras*  Homo  Mensura  was  equivalent  to  the  main- 
taining knowledge  to  be  sensation,  will  have  had  no  great 
significance.  For  tlie  term  sensation  only  has  force  in  distinc- 
tion from  other  possible  mental  processes:  and  if  Protagoras 
had  no  notion  of  such  distinction,  then,  upon  the  whole,  he  held 
what  Mr  Grote  considers  he  did,  though  Plato  may  not  have 
been  wrong  in  saying  that  he  held  iTriarrjfirj  aiaOrjaif;.  We 
shall  have  in  this  case  to  modify  or  somewhat  generalize  our 
notion  of  aXa6r)<TL<i,  and  to  call  it  'feeling'  rather  than  'sensation' 
or  *  sensitive  perception,'  and  this  indeed  suits  better  with  the 
constant  references  to  general  corporeal  experiences,  as  of  heat 
and  cold,  quite  as  much  as  to  the  experiences  of  what  we  call 
the  five  senses.  The  point  then  of  the  difference  of  view  taken 
of  Protagoras  by  Plato  and  by  Mr  Grote  will  be,  that,  supposing 
Protagoras  to  have  said.  Knowledge  is  individual  feeling, 
Mr  Grote  considers  the  importance  of  this  to  reside  in  the 
word  individual  {'  feeling '  being  taken  vaguely),  while  Plato 
considers 'feeling'  to  mean  corporeal  feeling  (which,  he  would 
say,  is  necessarily  individual  and  independent  in  each  man); 
and  holds  besides  that  there  are  mental  processes  to  be  brought 
out,  in  psychological  analysis,  from  the  vague  notion  of  'feeling,' 
which  are  not  thus  individual  and  merely  subjective  ;  and  that 
knowledge  really  resides  in  these  latter. 


I.] 


OF  THE  PROTAGOREAN  MAXIM. 


265 


I  cannot  therefore  follow  Mr  Cope's  reasoning  from  the 

ignorance  of  Protagoras  in  the  first  paragraph  of  page  22,  where 

he  says, '  Therefore  we  have  the  less  need  to  feel  surprise  at  his 

confining  his  theory  of  the  subjective  standard  of  truth  to  the 

apprehension  of  objects  by  sensation,  and  shall  have  the  less 

disinclination  to  believe  Plato  upon  his  word  when  he  tells  us 

that  he  did  so.'     If  Protagoras  was  'ignorant  of  any  distinction 

between  sensation  and  thought  or  knowledge,'  then  whatever 

word  he  used  to  express  the  intellectual  process  will,  I  conclude, 

have  represented  a  confusion  of  the  two,  whether  it  were  a 

word  corresponding  to  our  'sensation,'  or  to  our  'thought.'    If  he 

meant  by  aXadrjac^,  a  confused  mixture  of  what  we  should  call 

sensation,  thought,  and  knowledge  (which  in  fact  is  implied  in 

his  ignorance  of  any  distinction),  then  Mr  Grote's  view  is  the 

correct  one,  and  there  is  little  significance  in  Plato's  criticism. 

In   short   this  argument  of  Mr  Cope  shows,  if  it  shows 
anything,  that  there  must  have  been  much  scope  in  the  writings 
of  Protagoras  for  variety  of  view  about  his  exact  meaning. 
Plato  interprets  them  in  his  way,  and  controverts  them  as  thus 
understood.     As  I  have  said,  his  interpretation  is  probably  in 
the  main  the  correct  one.     But  under  the  circumstances  shown 
above,  it  is  highly  probable  that  other  views  of  him  were  taken 
also,  with  more  or  less  reason.    The  position  of  Plato  is  therefore 
that  of  an  interpreter,  in  conjunction  or  rivalry  with  others, 
who  had  his  books  before  them  as  well  as  Plato,  or  who  could 
at  least  readily  ascertain  their  contents :  it  is  not  the  position 
of  an  exhibitor  or  representor  of  his  view  to  those  who,  like  us, 
have  little  or  no  other  means  of  knowing  about  it.     If  Plato 
had  to  teach  men  in  this  dialogue  what  aLaOrjai^,  as  a  distinct 
mental  process,  was,  he  must  have  been  prepared  to  find  some  of 
those  who  had  read  anything  which  Protagoras  had  said  about 
aUOrjo-K:  without  this  knowledge,  (a  knowledge  which  Protagoras 
himself  did  not  possess)  taking  a  different  view  of  what  Pro- 
tagoras meant  from  that  which  he  took.     Mr  Grote  may  be 
supposed   in   this   day  one   of  that  possible   old  minority  of 
Protagorean  interpreters  revived:  and  the  discussion  now,  as 
then,  involves  both  the  points,  not  only  what  is  the  meaning 
of    TrdvTcop  fiirpov   dvOpatiro^   but    what    is   the   meaning   of 


\i 


266 


DISCUSSION   AS  TO  THE  MEANING 


[chap. 


iinaTijfjLv  aXadrjai,^,  with  a  view  of  ascertaining  how  far  the  one 
involves,  or  is  equivalent  to  the  other. 

When  Mr  Grote  and  Mr  Cope  tell  us  that  the  Theaetetus 
was  the  beginning  of  psychological  analysis,  they  do  not,  I  hope, 
mean  us  to  consider  that  it  was  the  beginning  of  a  course,  by 
which  all  the  confusion  and  difference  of  view  on  the  subject  of 
the  variety  of  mental  processes  were  got  rid  of,  so  that  though 
people  before  the  Theaetetus  may  have  doubted  what  eTnarrifirj 
ataOrjaL^  meant,  they  could  not  so  doubt   now.     Mr   Grote's 
commendation  of  the  doctrine  of  knowledge  being  sensation, 
as  he  holds  it,  is  curiously  in  point.     Mr  Grote  is  riiaintaining 
that   'all  knowledge   and   conception   of  truth   is  ultimately 
derivable  from   the  objects  of  sense'  (in  Mr  Cope's  words): 
and   in   doing   so,   of  course   gives   to   a   certain   extent,   his 
view  of  i-TTKTTijfiv  olGS'naL^.     '  Counting,  measuring,  weighing, 
are  facts  of  sense  simple  and   fundamental,  and  comparisons 
of  these   facts,   capable   of  being   so   exhibited   that  no   two 
persons  shall   either  see   them   differently  or   misunderstand 
them....  It   is  therefore   among   select   facts   of   sense,   care- 
fully observed  and  properly  compared,  that  the  groundwork 
of  unanimity  is  to  be  sought.'     Mr  Cope,  in  commenting  on 
these  words,  concludes  that,  for  this  unanimity,  we  must  suppose 
an  objective,  or  in  a  sense  external,  standard :  I  take  his  view  : 
and  /  comment  on  the  words  with  a  view  of  ascertaining  what 
Mr  Grote's  view  of  iirLaTrjfjLv  alaO'naL^  is.     Will  everybody  now 
agree  with  Mr  Grote  that '  counting,  measuring,  etc.  are  facts  of 
sense  or  explicable  by  sensation?'     Will  all  understand  alike 
this  process  of  comparison  of  sensations,  and  agree  as  to  the 
amount  of  simply  mental  activity  which  the  word  is  to  be 
taken  as  implying?     Will  they  agree  whether  the  sensations 
compare  themselves,  or  whether  we,  still  sensationalists,  can 
allow  of  a  superior  faculty  comparing  them  ?     Will  Mr  Grote 
tell  us  how  counting  and  measuring  will  give  us  a  basis  of 
knowledge  as  to  colmir,  we  will  say?     And  might  not  some 
philosophers  say  what  Mr  Grote  says  here,  only  varying  the 
language,  and  describing  as  facts  of  distinctive  sense  phenomena 
of  the  last  kind  (colour,  etc.),  the  other  alleged  facts  being  styled 
judgments  orforw^  of  sensation,  or  whatever  it  might  be  ? 


IJ 


OF  THE   PROTAGOREAN   MAXIM. 


267 


I  call  attention  to  this  not  the  least  with  the  intention  of 
discussing  what  €7n<TT7Jfj,7}  aiaOrfo-c^  does  mean,  but  to  suggest 
as  worthy  of  our  thought  the  question  how  far,  at  this  moment, 
if  we  asked  a  succession  of  philosophers.  What  is  the  meaning 
of  knowledge  being  sensation  ?  we  should  get  similar  answers. 
And  yet  of  course,  till  they  were  agreed  upon  their  answer,  it 
would  be  useless  for  them  to  discuss  whether  such  and  such 
a  person  held  that  knowledge  was  sensation.  Mr  Grote  to  a 
certain  extent,  and  Mr  Cope  still  more,  speak  as  if,  though  the 
meanmg  of  irdvrtov  fierpov  dvOpcoiro^  might  be  matter  of 
discussion,  the  meaning  of  eirio-Tr/fn]  aiaOrfat<;  must  be  evident. 
But  if  this  is  not  clear  now,  it  is  hardly  likely  to  have  been  so 
in  those  times  of  non-analysis. 

Apparently  it  is  granted  on  both  sides,  that  whatever  Homo 
Mensura  may  mean,  and  whatever  'the  Kelativity  of  Know- 
ledge' may  mean,  they  both  represent,  to  some  extent,  the  same 
notion.  Now  Mr  Mill,  in  his  book  on  Sir  William  Hamilton*, 
without  any  thought  apparently  of  Plato  or  Protagoras,  ex- 
plaining '  the  Relativity  of  Knowledge '  in  what  he  considers 
'  the  simplest,  purest  and  most  proper  acceptation  of  the  words' 
explains  it  thus;  'that  all  the  attributes  which  we  ascribe  to 
objects  consist  in  their  having  the  power  of  exciting  one  or 
another  variety  of  sensation  in  our  minds;  that  to  us  the 
properties  of  an  object  have  this  and  no  other  meaning ;  that 
an  object  is  to  us  nothing  else  than  that  which  affects  our 
senses  in  a  certain  manner ;  that  we  are  incapable  of  attaching 
to  the  word  'object'  any  other  meaning... so  that  our  knowledge 
of  objects  and  even  our  fancies  about  objects  consist  of  nothing 
but  the  sensations  which  they  excite,  or  which  we  imagine 
them  exciting  in  ourselves.' 

Here  we  have  the  doctrine  of  the  relativity  of  knowledge 
put  forward  as  naturally  associating  itself  with  a  theory  of 
'knowledge'  being  'sensation,'  and  Plato's  proceeding  in  the 
Theaetetus  seems  to  me  precisely  similar.  All  that  Plato  does 
in  reality  is  to  quote  from  Protagoras  the  saying  w^hich  is 
equivalent  to  '  knowledge  is  relative,'  and,  in  view  of  discussing 

*  Pp.  7,  8. 


t 


268 


DISCUSSION  AS  TO  THE  MEANING 


[chap. 


it,  to  suppose  it  to  imply  a  theory  that  knowledge  is  sensation 
— Plato's  exact  proceeding  being  in  the  reverse  order.  Now 
we  need  not  agree  with  either  Mr  Mill  or  with  Plato.  When 
Plato  abruptly,  as  he  does,  says  that  the  theory  of  knowledge 
being  sensation  is  equivalent  to  the  Protagorean  relativity  and 
the  Ionic  flux  and  flow,  I  think  we  are  a  little  startled,  and  are 
disposed  to  consider  that  things  are  brought  together  at  least 
rather  too  summarily  and  rapidly.  And  similarly  in  reference  to 
Mr  Mill's  explanation  given  above  of  the  doctrine  of  Relativity 
(the  application  of  which  makes  out  Sir  W.  Hamilton  in  spite 
of  his  own  belief,  not  really  to  have  held  the  doctrine),  we  may 
be  a  little  doubtful  about  that  also.  It  is  curious  to  compare 
the  proceedings  of  Plato  as  to  Protagoras  in  old  time,  and  of 
Mr  Mill  as  to  Sir  W.  Hamilton  now.  Plato  makes  Protagoras 
hold  the  theory  of  knowledge  being  sensation,  because  he  held 
Relativity  :  Mr  Mill  mil  not  let  Sir  W.  Hamilton  hold  Relativity, 
because  he  holds,  or  is  supposed  to  hold,  that  we  know  some- 
thing of  things  in  themselves,  and  that  there  is  some  knowledge 
not  from  sensation. 

Evidently  therefore  there  is  a  great  tendency  to  join  the 
two  doctrines  together,  not  only  among  the  contemporaries  and 
successors  of  Plato,  but  among  philosophers  still.  And  the 
probability  is  very  strong,  not  only  that  Plato  understood 
Protagoras  in  the  main,  but  that  Protagoras,  in  enouncing  his 
Relativity,  was  thinking  rather  of  its  philosophical  bearing,  if 
we  may  so  call  it,  that  is,  of  its  connexion  with  the  manner  of 
our  gaining  our  knowledge,  than  of  what  is  rather  its  moral 
bearing,  that  is,  its  connexion  with  our  taking  our  beliefs  from 
authority,  instead  of  thinking  for  ourselves,  and  keeping  fast 
hold  of  our  own  truth,  so  to  call  it,  against  others.  Mr  Grote's 
commendation  of  the  Protagorean  view,  as  he  understands  it, 
seems  to  me  made  from  a  point  of  view  so  very  unlike  what 
the  philosophy  of  Protagoras  was  likely  to  have  concerned 
itself  with,  that  it  rather  weighs  against  his  supposition  of 
Protagoras'  meaning  being  the  correct  one. 

The  relativity  spoken  of  by  Mr  Mill  may  be  called  generic 
relativity,  in  contrast  to  Protagorean  or  individual  relativity. 
The  principle  of  the  former  and  of  the  theory  of  sensation 


I] 


OF  THE   PROTAGOREAN  MAXIM. 


269 


accompanying  it  may  be  described  as  being,  that  the  senses 
give  substantially  to  each  man  the  same  information  under  the 
same  outward  circumstances:  but  if  we  suppose  another  race 
of  intelligent  beings  with  different  senses,  they  would  have 
different  information  given  them,  and  therefore  different  know- 
ledge :  hence  knowledge  is  generically  relative,  depending  upon 
the  faculties  by  which  it  is  apprehended.  The  supposed 
Protagorean  relativity  says,  Each  individual  is,  for  knowledge, 
himself,  autonomous,  independent. 

The  individual  character  of  the  ancient  relativity  is  what 
Mr  Grote  tries  to  bring  out  in  the  strongest  manner,  and  it  is 
apparently  from  the  wish  to  make  it  the  single,  undivided 
point  of  the  Protagorean  doctrine  that  he  takes  so  much  pains 
to  separate  off"  the  sensationalism.  This  latter,  as  we  have 
seen,  he  does  not  disapprove :  only  he  does  not  wish  Prota- 
goreanism,  if  we  may  so  speak,  expanded  in  this  direction.  For 
then  we  could  not  fail  to  come  to  the  observation,  which  is  the 
basis,  as  I  have  just  said,  of  modern  sensationalism,  viz.  that 
the  senses,  in  the  main,  tell  us  all  (i.e.  each  man)  alike :  that 
the  mass  of  the  knowledge  which  the}'  give  us  is  intercom- 
municable  and  is  common  property,  however  it  may  involve 
beneath  it  much  that  is  not  so.  The  charm  of  sensationalism, 
in  the  eyes  of  Locke  and  most  modern  sensationalists  (curiously 
enough,  considering  how  the  old  individual  sensationalism  was 
attacked  on  just  the  opposite  lines)  is  the  degree  to  which  it 
secures  us  against  individual  arbitrary  judgments.  If  we 
follow  out  sensation  we  get  away,  on  the  whole,  from  indi- 
vidual independence.  Mr  Grote,  considering  the  point  of 
Protagoras'  dictum  to  be  the  individualness  of  the  relativity, 
would  rather  follow  this  out  in  the  direction  of  the  entire 
process  of  knowledge,  including  thought  and  judgment.  Sup- 
posing Plato  to  understand  Protagoras  thus,  ttclvtcov  /jLerpov 
avOpcoirof;  alaOavofjuevo^,  we  may  suppose  Mr  Grote  to  understand 
him  thus,  tt.  fju.  a.  ala6av6fjbevo<;  rj  ho^d^cov.  On  the  other  hand 
we  may  suppose  Plato  to  have  understood  Protagoras,  tt.  /a. 
eavrS  av6p(i)'iro<;  alaOavofievot;,  which  is  true  or  false  according 
as  it  is  understood :  this  is  the  view  expressed  in  other  words 
by  ola  jJLev  CKaara  ifjiol  <f>aiv€TaL,  Toiavra  fi€v  eariv  ifirn,  ola 


ilj 


t 


270  MEANING  OF   THE  PROTAGOREAN   MAXIM.       [CHAP.  I. 

Be  (Tol,  Toiavra  Se  av  aol' :  '  the  senses  always  tell  us  true/  or 
'  much  that  they  tell  us  is  illusion/  according  to  the  language 
we  use.  But,  whatever  be  the  real  truth  or  want  of  truth  in 
this,  there  is  a  more  important  truth  in  such  a  phrase  as  tt.  fi. 
(not  eavTw  only,  but)  Trdaiv  av0pa)7ro<;  ala6av6fi€vo<;  dvoam. 
Sensation,* under  its  normal  conditions,  gives  knowledge  which 
is,  and  is  understood  by  the  individual  as  good,  not  for 
the  individual  himself  only,  but  for  all:  it  is  part  of  his 
idea  of  it  as  knowledge  that  it  is  for  all.  To  the  extent  to 
which  there  is  any  notion  in  his  mind  that  it  is  not  so,  but  is 
knowledge  to  himself  alone;  that  something  e.g,  which  he 
supposes  himself  to  see  would  not  be  seen  by  ^.nother  in  his 
place,— to  that  extent  he  doubts  of  its  being  knowledge :  the 
notion  of  its  being  kavroi,  to  himself  as  against  others,  spoils  it 
as  knowledge,  though  it  may  endear  it  as  imagination. 

I  Theaet.  151 E.,  quoted  in  Grote's  Plato,  n.  323. 


CHAPTER  11. 


RIGHT   AND   DUTY    OF   PRIVATE   JUDGMENT. 


Mr  Grote,  interpreting  Protagoras  to  have  meant  by  his 
dictum,  that  every  thing  which  a  man  deliberately  thinks, 
judges,  believes,  is  true  to  him  individually,  and  that  this  is 
all  the  notion  which  we  can  have  of  truth,  makes  many  most 
valuable  remarks  on  the  importance  of  this  intellectual  indi- 
viduality. But,  as  a  matter  of  philosophy,  it  seems  to  me  that 
what  he  does  is  only  to  take  away  all  particular  meaning  from 
the  words  truth  and  knowledge,  so  that  we  should  have  to  use 
our  language  differently.  He  speaks  himself  of  one  person 
being  wiser  than  another :  well  then,  supposing  everybody  is  in 
possession  of  truth,  each  of  his  own,  we  must  leave  the  notion 
of  truth  in  philosophy,  as  useless  to  examine,  and  must  do 
what  will  come  to  the  same  thing,  examine  what  is  the  meaning 
of  one  person  being  tui,ser  than  another.  We  may  call  each 
man's  belief  his  truth  if  we  like  it :  I  see  nothing  in  this  more 
than  altering  the  meaning  of  words.  In  that  case,  instead 
of  speaking  of  a  more  or  less  true  belief  we  must  speak  of  a 
superior  and  inferior,  a  more  or  less  correct,  truth.  Horror  of 
authority  seems  to  be  rather  an  idde  fixe  of  Mr  Grote :  but  he 
does  not  seem  sufficiently  to  consider,  that  what  needs  setting 
against  this  belief  on  authority,  is,  from  the  philosophical  point 
of  view,  not  hugging  our  own  opinion  as  our  particular  truth, 
but  belief  upon  evidence,  and  refusal  to  yield  to  anything  but 
that.  Whether  our  belief  is  on  authority  or  evidence,  we  must 
equally  go  out  of  ourselves  for  the  materials  of  our  judgment. 
Our  judgment  on  evidence  may  even  be  called  less  individual 


272 


RIGHT  AND  DUTY   OF  PRIVATE  JUDGMENT.         [CHAP. 


than  if  we  believed  on  authority:  we  choose  our  authority 
perhaps  arbitrarily,  but  a  belief  upon  evidence  implies  a  suppo- 
sition on  our  part  that  the  grounds  of  our  belief  are  what  will, 
or  ought  to,  satisfy  another,  and  reasonable  persons  in  general. 
We  express  this  by  saying,  *  We  judge  for  ourselves' :  but  this 
does  not  mean, '  We  make  our  truth  for  ourselves/  We  should 
so  be  led  to  the  worst  form  of  belief  on  authority,  of  which 
there  are  some  hints  in  Mr  Grote, — following  the  mass  or 
majority.  If  truth  only  means,  *  that  which  is  believed,'  there 
is  some  danger  lest  we  should  conclude.  Then  the  best  truth, 
the  truth  which  we  had  better  adopt  amongst  the  infinity  of 
individual  truths,  is  that  which  is  most  and  most  widely 
believed — the  voice  of  the  multitude. 

In  the  Introduction  to  the  First  Part  of  the  Exploratio 
Philosophical  I  have  expressed  myself  on  the  subject  of  the 
importance  of  individual  judgment  very  strongly,  and  in  a 
manner  which  might  appear  to  some  at  first  sight  to  imply  a 
view  similar  to  Mr  Grote's.  In  reality,  however,  my  view  of 
the  importance  of  individual  judgment  is  very  nearly  the 
reverse  of  his. 

The  question  may  present  itself,  more  intelligibly  to  some, 
if  by  way  of  introduction  to  it  I  use  terms  which  Mr  Grote 
just  introduces,  but  which  have  been  more  commonly  used  in 
reference  to  religious  controversy.  The  difference  between  him 
and  me  is  simply  this,  that  while  what  is  important  in  his 
eyes  is  the  right  of  private  judgment,  what  is  important  in 
mine  is  the  duty  of  it. 

Mr  Grote's  view  is  that,  in  a  manner,  a  man's  thinking  for 
himself  gives  him  truth,  his  truth  ;  and  since  the  possession  of 
this  truth  is  an  important  and  valuable  thing  to  him,  his  right 
of  thinking  for  himself  is  so  also.  My  view,  while  I  do  not 
deny  this,  passes  on  beyond  it.  A  man's  thinking  for  himself 
gives  him  truth  of  a  certain  kind,  his  truth,  if  we  so  like  to  call 
it.  But  he  is  not  to  rest  here.  His  thinking  for  himself  is 
important,  not  only  to  himself,  but  to  others  and  to  intellectual 
society,  because  all  thought  and  learning  is  really  social  in  a 

*  Pp.  xxii.,  zxxii. — xlvii. 


11.] 


RIGHT  AND   DUTY  OF   PRIVATE  JUDGMENT. 


273 


manner  which   I  have  at  various   times   explained.     To  use 
Platonic  language,  it  advances  in  the  way  of  dialectic,  by  the 
comparison  of  the  thought  of  one  man  with  that  of  another: 
and  the  thought  of  any  individual  man  is  worthless  for  this 
comparison,  unless  the  thought  is  true  to  that  man's  self,  i.e. 
unless  he  has  been  at  pains  and  has  been  conscientious  about 
it,  and  unless  his  account  of  it  represents  something  which  he 
has  really  inwardly  or  outwardly  seen.     What  is  important  for 
a  man  is,  to  get  at  what  he  really  does  think  and  see,  a  matter 
which  few  people  are  interested  about,  and  which  is  the  sign  of 
what  I  should  consider  the  real  philosopher.     Knowledge,  so 
far  as  it  is  knowledge,  is  only  accidentally  the  property  of  one 
man  rather  than  of  another ;  it  equally  fits  all ;  it  is  the  same 
in  whatever  mind  it  is ;  it  is  communicable  and  transferable  by 
language.     But  all  knowledge  rests,  in  the  first  instance,  upon 
a  truth  or  trueness  oi  observation  and  thought,  which  is  individual. 
As  in  the  case  of  disentangling  evidence  we  want  to  find  out 
what  this  and  that  person  really  were  witnesses  of,  so  here 
we    want   to    find   out,   for  sense,   what   is   the    thing   which 
we  really  see,  and  for  thought,  what  is   the  thing  which  we 
really  inwardly  see  or  are  conscious  of.     When  we  do   this, 
we   being  all  of  us  men,  with  substantially  similar  faculties 
of  intelligence,  the  individual  is  a  measure  of  truth,  in  one 
way   to    himself,   in   another   generally  and   for  all.      He   is 
a  measure  to  himself,  in  so   far  as   his   actually   seeing   the 
thing  (I  will  use  the  word  seeing  as  the  typical  word)  is  truth 
to  him :  he  cannot  get  rid  of  it,  he  cannot  substitute  anything 
as  truth  for  it,  it  stands  intimate  to  him,  uncorrectable.     But 
while  he  has  on  the  one  side  the  firm  persuasion,  that  nothing 
can  commend  itself  as  true  to  him,  which  is  in  opposition  to  his 
own  seeing  as  above,  supposing  it  careful  and  conscientious,  he 
has  on  the  other  side  equally  strongly  the  notion  of  knowledge 
as  something  which  is  only  accidentally  individual,  something 
which  is  no  more  his  property  than  that  of  others :  so  that  any 
conception  on  his  part  of  what  he  sees  being  true  to  him,  while 
possibly  not  true  to  others,  would  be  in  fact  a  doubt  whether  it 
was   true,  or   knowledge,   at   all:    his   mind  would   be  in  an 
inextricable  perplexity:   the  notions  of  truth  and  knowledge 
M.  18 


274  RIGHT  AND   DUTY  OF   PRIVATE  JUDGMENT.         [CHAP. 

would  be  destroyed  or  cease  to  exist.     His  feeling  therefore  as 
to  his  own  thought— and  not  only  his  feeling,  but  the  fact— is 
that,  83   in   one  view  he  thinks  and  sees  for  himself,  so  in 
another  view  he  thinks  and  sees  for  every  one.     In  one  view  he 
thinks  and  sees  as  Thomas  or  Charles,  in  another  as  a  human 
creature  or  an  intelligent  being  in  general :  and  full  truth  or 
knowledge  is  the  super-induction  of  the  latter  of  these  notions 
upon   the   former.     Neither  of  them  will  give  it  separately. 
His  seeing  or  thinking  as  Thomas  or  Charles,  if  he  does  so 
conscientiously,  will  give  a  truth,  but  it  is  not  till  he  adds  the 
notion  of  his  thus  thinking  or  seeing  being  typical  of  what 
others  will  think  or  see,  that  it  is  what  I  have  just  called  full 
truth,  or  what  he  would  count  as  knowledge.     On  the  other 
hand,'  his  simply  following  the  example  and  authority  of  other 
intelligent  beings,  and  thinking  or  seeing  (if  we  may  call  it  so) 
as  they  do,  will  give  him  it  may  be  truth,  another  truth  or  a 
different  portion  of  it,  to  the  extent  to  which  the  example  is 
foUowable :  but  though  he  may  adopt  the  thoughts  of  others, 
he   cannot   think  them   except   for  himself,  and  knowing,  or 
thinking  truly,  is  a  case  of  thinking. 

Human  experience  is  all  anticipated,  if  we  may  so  speak,  in 
the  frame  of  the  human  mind,  which  is  a  part  of  the  general 
manner  in  which  things  exist  for  each  other,  or  fit  together. 
Seeing  is  knowing  that  we  see,  and  knowing  that  we  see  is 
knowing  that  what  we  see  is  as  we  see  it.     Whatever  therefore 
we  can  say  to  ourselves  that  we  see,— supposing  the  care  and 
conscientiousness  which  I  have  spoken  of  above,— is  certain  to 
us,  and  derives  no  additional  certainty  from  the  fact  that  any 
number  of  people  see  the  thing  the  same  as  we  do.     Knowing 
that  another  person  sees  the  thing  is  the  same  as  taking  a  second 
look  ourselves,  to  be  sure  what  it  is  that  we  see,  and  it  is  no 
more.     In  regard  then  of  our  sensation  and  thought,  from  the 
first,  we  perceive  and  think  not  for  ourselves  only,  but  for  all 
and  any,  with  the  same  persuasion  of  the  certainty  of  what  we 
see  and  think  as  certain,  as  if  we  knew  for  a  fact  that  every- 
body else  saw  and  thought  the  same.    The  fact  thus  anticipated 
in  the  manner  of  our  sight  and  thought,  viz.  that  others  see 
and  think  the  same  as  we,  we  find  justified  by  our  actual 


II.] 


RIGHT   AND   DUTY   OF  PRIVATE  JUDGMENT. 


275 


experience.     We  may  find,  indeed,  in  this  experience,  that  the 
commencing  assumption  was  in  a  manner  too  general,  that  is, 
that,  in  our  sight  and  thought,  there  is  something  belonging 
to  ourselves  exclusively,  so  that  the  first  or  individual  truth  of 
our  sight  and  thought  (as  to  the  reality  of  which  each  is  fierpov 
iavT^,  a  measure  to  himself)  has  to  be  pruned,  in  order  to  our 
arriving  at  the  second  or  full  truth,  that  namely,  of  which  each 
IS  fierpov  irdavv,  a  measure  good  for  all  alike.     This  is  merely  a 
further  extension  of  what  I  alluded  to  when,  in  speaking  of 
sensation,  I  said  that  Traf/ro?  ^leTpov  iraxrcv  avOpw-rro^  alaOdv- 
ofievo^  dvoo-o)^:  any  special  individuality  of  sensation  in  the 
body  is  of  the  nature  of  disease  :  and  in  one  way,  individuality 
of  thought  may  be  looked  on,  in  comparison  with  the  knowledge 
or  true  thought  which  is  alike  for  all,  as  disease  likewise.     But 
in  this  respect  it  is  not  like  disease,  viz.  that,  for  knowledge, 
what  is  needed  in  regard  of  it  is  not  to  get  rid  of  it,  but  to 
allow  and  underetand  it,  and  then  to  make  the  proper  correction. 
This  is  what  is  done  in  the  intercourse  of  life  and  in  that 
special  intellectual  intercourse  which  Plato,  I  suppose,  meant 
by  Dialectic.     It  is   curious   to   observe   how,  in  Mr  Grote's 
argument  with  Plato  about  this,  the  two  sides  of  truth,  its 
generality  and  its  individuality,  are  brought  out.     No  step  is 
made,  says  Mr  Grote^  in  the  Socratic  Dialectic  or  Elenchus, 
unless  you  alter  the  view  of  the  individual :  truth  is  therefore 
individual.     On   the  other  hand,  were  truth  individual  only, 
why  should  you  try  to  alter  the  view  of  the  individual  ?     Why 
should  you  not  keep  your  own  truth,  and  leave  him  his  ?     In 
this  dialectic,  just  as,  on  the  one  hand,  the  requiring  of  the 
assent  of  the  answerer  at  each  step,  shows  that  truth  must  be 
individual,  or  that  you  have  gained  nothing  unless  you  have 
made  it  truth  for  him :    so  the  fact  of  your  discussing  and 
comparing  and  testing  opinions  shows  that  you  do  not  consider 
this  individual  opinion  or  truth  for  a  man's  self,  as  what  is  to 
be  rested  in,  but  as  the  road  towards  a  not-individual  opinion, 
or  truth  for  all.     It  is  most  important,  in  the  way  to  this,  that 
you  should  have  the  individual  opinion  well  brought  out,  and 


*  I.e.  p.  356. 


18—2 


276  RIGHT   AND  DUTY   OF   PRIVATE  JUDGMENT.         [CHAP. 

herein  lies  the  value  of  the  Socratic  cross-examination :  the 
individual  opinion,  if  it  be  a  real  and  conscientious  sight  or 
thought  on  the  part  of  the  individual,  has  of  necessity  a  truth, 
which  when  brought  into  contact  with  other  individual  opinion 
(either  counter-asserting  and  comparing,  or,  as  in  dialectic 
suggesting  doubts,  and  leading  to  distrust,  examination,  and 
further  thought)  will  more  or  less  lead  on,  by  the  connexion 
which  all  truth  has  together,  to  truth  of  more  fullness  and 

importance.  « 

The  individual  view  is  thus  the  witness  which  we  have  ot 
objective  fact  or  truth,  and  it  is  because  it  is  this  witness  that 
to  me  it  is  of  value.     Our  own  individual  view  is  the  first  thing 
to  us  because  it  is  intimate  to  us  in  a  manner  quite  different 
from  anything  which  the  thought  of  others  is;  and  what  we 
mean  by  ^objective  fact  or  truth'  is  a  somethmg  which  we 
believe  this  to  bear  witness  of  to  us.     But  along  with  our  own 
view  we  have,  as  I  have  said,-and  if  we  did  not  have  it  we 
should  not  have  the  notions  of  truth  and  knowledge  at  all,  nor, 
I  think,  would  the  words  have  existed— the  thought  that  it  is, 
in  substance,  not  individually  or  exclusively  ours,  but  that  it  is 
the  view  of  intelligence,  of  which  intelligence  we,  each  of  us,  are 
an  instance  or  specimen.    It  is  in  virtue  of  this  latter  thought 
that  we  consider  our  view  to  be  truth  or  knowledge,  and  call 
that  which  we  believe  it  to  bear  witness  to,  fact,  this  term^ 
having  its  significance  to  us  by  contrast  with  a  '  counter-notion,' 
which  we  call  illusion.     Experience,  as  we  go  on,  both  confirms 
and  corrects  our  individual  view  with  its  accompanying  thought; 
not  indeed  by  confirmation  adding  more  certainty  to  it,  nor  yet 
by  correction  altering  its  substance :   but  there  comes  to  be 
formed  in  us  a  mass  of  opinion  of  every  variety  of  certainty, 
and  with  various  degrees  of  insight  and  belief,  which  opinion  is 
continually  modifying  itself  according  to  our  intercourse  with 
others,  and  the  comparison  of  their  individual  views  with  our 
own.     We  make  use  as  it  were  of  their  eyes  to  help  our  own  to 
see  the  objective  fact :  and  beyond  sight  or  immediate  certainty, 
the  mass  of  opinion  or  belief,  which  furnishes  our  mind,  is  of 
value   if  it   rests  on  evidence,  this  evidence  being,  like  the 
original  sight,  good  for  all,  if  good  for  one. 


11.] 


RIGHT   AND   DUTY   OF   PRIVATE  JUDGMENT. 


277 


It  is  because  individuality  of  view  with  me  thus  stands 
subordinate  to  an  objective  truth  which  we  believe  in,  that  it 
is  able  (as  I  look  at  things)  to  maintain  itself  against  any 
possible  view  of  any  number  of  others.  If  what  I  feel  is,  I 
suppose  this  or  that,  I  should  consider  it  presumption  to  put 
my  supposing  against  that  of  men  in  general :  but  if  what  I 
feel  is,  I  see  this  or  that,  then  I  could  not,  if  I  would,  yield  in 
this  matter  to  others.  If  I  am  sure  that  I  see  the  thing,  I 
cannot  get  rid  of  the  feeling.  It  is  in  the  dependence  of  our 
thought  upon  a  believed  object  of  it,  that  resides  its  indepen- 
dence of  the  opinion  of  others,  or  its  true  individuality. 

Mr  Grote,  looking  upon  individual  view  as  valuable  in 
itself,  not  as  I  have  done,  in  its  character  of  witness,  has  at 
last,  it  appears  to  me,  to  leave  hold  of  his  own  view  where  it  is 
most  needed.  Taking  his  view,  we  seem  to  have  no  ground 
upon  which  we  can  maintain  our  opinion  against  that  of  others, 
or  have  anything  further  to  say  about  it,  except  that  it  is 
ours.  And  this  being  so,  unless  we  suppose  no  intellectual 
intercourse  and  no  comparison  of  opinions,  all  support  of  indi- 
viduality of  opinion  seems  to  vanish,  and  such  intercourse  and 
comparison  is  likely  only  to  result  in  an  acquiescence,  on  the 
part  of  individuals  in  what  is  most  generally  believed.  The 
individuality  which  was  at  first  so  strongly  asserted  thus 
ends  in  destroying  itself 

To  illustrate  the  relation  of  individual  truth  of  view  to  full 
truth  or  knowledge,  we  might  take  an  instance  from  sense.  I 
think  I  see  a  mountain  out  of  my  window.  This  fact,  so  far,  is 
full  of  individuality  or  accidentalness,  and  in  order  to  be  a  fact 
contributory,  for  me  or  for  any,  to  full  or  proper  knowledge, 
has  got,  in  this  first  state,  to  be  carefully  tested.  Is  it  a 
window  that  is  before  me,  and  not  a  picture  in  which  a 
mountain  is  painted,  or  a  mirror  reflecting  a  mountain  behind 
me  ?  Am  I  certain,  as  I  look  and  look  again,  that  the  object 
before  me  retains  the  same  figure,  so  that  I  can  be  certain  that 
it  is  a  mountain,  not  a  cloud  ?  Is  my  eyesight  healthy,  (the 
dv6a(o<;  which  I  mentioned),  not  liable  to  films  obscuring  it  or 
to  any  other  defect  ?  Supposing  a  man  comes  out  and  tells  us, 
I  saw  there  a  mountain  from  the  window  in  such  a  direction, 


278 


RIGHT  AND   DUTY   OF  PRIVATE  JUDGMENT.         [CHAP. 


there  is  all  the  difference  in  the  world  whether  we  can  trust 
him  for  having  really  looked,  in  somewhat  of  the  way  I  have 
described,   or   whether   we    have   only   reason   to   think   that 
something  has  passed  before  his  eyes,  which,  in  his  carelessness, 
he  describes  as  he  does.     In  the  former  case  we  are  as  certain, 
speaking  generally,  that  the  mountain  is  there  as  he  is,  and  our 
knowledge  through  his  eyes  is  as  trustworthy  to  us  as  if  it 
were  through  our  own,  and  he  on  his  part  most  likely  tells  us, 
not   the   individual  fact,   /  saw  a  mountain  there,  but  the 
general  fact,  There  is  a  mountain  there,  he  meaning  by  this 
not,  I  think  there  is,  or  to  my  view  and  for  individual  me  there 
is,  but  I  know  there  is,  and  in  knowing  it  I  know  it  for  you  as 
well  as  for  myself,  I  know  that  whichever  of  us  goes  to  the 
window  will  equally  see  it :  I  tried  every  means  of  testing  my 
seeing,  and  until  I  had  tested  it,  if  you  had  passed,  I  should 
have  said,  I  think  there  is  a  mountain  there,  to  me  there  is : 
but  then  I  should  not  yet  have  said  for  myself,  I  know  there 
is.     It   may  not  be  possible   to  make  the  testing   complete, 
and  of  course   I   may   be  deceived :   it   may  after  all  be   a 
cloud,  not   a   mountain :   the   point   is,   that   I  am   no   more 
certain  of  anything  for  myself  than  I  am  for  you,  that  I  have 
no  individual  certainty  or  knowledge  except  such  as  is  acci- 
dental to  the  matter  in  which  we  are  both  interested,  which  is 
the  existence  of  the  mountain,  such  e.g.  as  the  size  of  the 
supposed  window,  the  shape  of  the  room,  &c.,  which  are  all 
parts  of  the  first  fact  or  the  sensation,  but  are  only  mediately 
important  to  the  full  or  desired  truth.     When  I  say  mediately 
important,  what  I  mean  is  this:    you  might  want  to  know 
whether  you  could  trust  me  for  having  really  looked  with  care 
and  attention:  your  way  of  doing  this  would  be  by  examining 
how  distinct  the  first  fact,  upon  which  all  rests,  was  with  me. 
If  you  asked  whether  the  window  was  large  or  small,  and  I  said 
I  did  not  know ;  whether  the  room  was  square  or  round,  and  I 
said  it  was  square  when  you  knew  it  was  round, — you  would 
say  then  my  observation  was  worth  nothing,  and  you  would 
not  trouble  yourself  about  it. 

Perhaps  this  illustration  may  help  to  make  it  understood 
how  the  furthest  point  towards  knowledge  to  which  we  are 


u] 


RIGHT  AND   DUTY  OF   PRIVATE  JUDGMENT. 


279 


able  to  get  for  ourselves  is  the  most  real  knowledge,  or  the 
thought  nearest  to  knowledge,  to  which  we  can  arrive  for 
others,  or  as  general  fact.  What  is  individual  belongs  to  a 
middle  region,  having  a  value  which  I  would  exalt  as  much  as 
Mr  Grote  does,  but  a  value  which  I  have  just  now  called 
mediate,  something  not  to  be  rested  in  for  itself  We  must  be 
true  to  ourselves  in  what  we  see  and  think :  otherwise  we  shall 
not  be  able  to  add  to  the  stock  of  general  truth,  of  truth  which 
is  good  alike  for  ourselves  and  for  others.  We  must  be  each 
one  to  oureelves  a  faithful  jjuerpov  iravrcov,  a  rule  of  brass  or 
good  hard  wood  and  not  of  flexible  lead  or  wax,  because  we  each, 
individually,  are  the  measure  of  a  portion  of  reality  which, 
when  combined  with  other  portions  of  knowledge,  of  which 
others,  in  their  life  and  history,  are  measures,  (the  individuality 
or  'accidentalness'  which  I  described  just  now  being  disengaged) 
results  in  man  being  generically  a  fxerpov  Trdvreov.  The  things 
which  lue  see  for  others,  as  well  as  for  ourselves,  are  put  along 
with  the  things  which  others  see  for  ws  as  well  as  for  them- 
selves, and  thus  has  been  accumulated  what  we  call  the  stock 
of  existing  knowledge. 

I  do  not  at  all  mean  to  say  that  it  is  easy  for  us  to  reconcile 
the  certainty  of  individual  sensations  and  insight  with  the 
feeling  which  we  have  that  what  is  true  for  one  is  true  for  all ; 
so  that,  if  we  find  others  differing  from  us,  we  can  only  hold 
our  own  opinion  with  something  of  an  effort  and  possibly  with 
mistrust.  I  have  before  said  that,  with  regard  to  sensation  and 
individual  conviction,  we  do  not  wait  for  others  in  order  to  be 
certain,  in  the  manner  which  I  have  described,  alike  for 
ourselves  and  for  them.  Truth  is  not  deference  to  numbers, 
not  the  generally  believed,  in  which  the  individual  must  ac- 
quiesce. If  we  saw  the  thermometer  was  at  50,  and  knew  we 
had  looked  carefully,  we  should  not  be  the  least  more  certain 
because  half-a-dozen  persons,  looking  successively  and  immedi- 
ately after  us,  said  the  same.  But,  inasmuch  as  the  feeling 
that  we  saw  it,  was  at  the  same  time  a  feeling  that  others 
would  see  it  similarly,  we  should  be  in  very  great  perplexity  of 
mind  if  the  half-dozen  persons,  we  having  reason  to  trust  them, 
should   agree   in   saying  that   it  was   60.     The  individuality 


V 


1^1 


I 


280 


RIGHT   AND  DUTY  OF  PRIVATE  JUDGMENT.  [CHAP. 


of  observation  and  the  felt  generality  of  knowledge,  or  the 
result  of  observation,  would  be  in  conflict.  We  should  look 
again,  they  would  look  again,  we  should  clear  our  eyes,  do 
anything  we  could  to  test  the  observation,  be  sure  we  all  looked 
from  the  same  point,  I  know  not  what, — we  might  have  at  last 
to  rest  in  our  perplexity.  But  it  would  not  at  all  satisfy  the 
perplexity,  with  me,  for  us  to  sit  down  and  for  me  to  say '  Well, 
each  is  a  measure  for  himself:  it  is  60  for  you  and  50  for  me, 
both  are  true,  one  your  truth,  the  other  mine.'  Both  are  true, 
as  facts  of  observation :  it  is  a  fact  that  you  see  the  thermo- 
meter 60, 1  50 :  it  is  a  fact  moreover  which  like  all  fact,  has  its 
meaning  and  its  reason,  if  we  could  but  get  at  this,  and  points 
therefore  or  is  in  the  way  towards  knowledge,  only  that  we 
cannot  get  further  along  the  way:  there  must  be  something 
wrong  in  you  or  in  me  or  in  the  thermometer,  though  as  yet  we 
have  not  found  out  what.  But  if  we  can  go  no  further,  the 
two  true  facts  of  observation  only  make  knowledge  about  what 
is  accidental  and  unimportant:  they  make  no  knowledge  about 
the  thing  which  we  want  to  know,  viz.  what  the  thermometer 
stands  at. 

There  is  a  thing  which  in  this  perplexity,  some  might  say 
was  the  thing  to  be  done,  an<l  that  is  for  me  to  say,  *  It  is  six 
to  one  against  me :  I  must  give  in.*  I  do  not  think  I  should 
do  so.  Till  I  saw  reason  to  mistrust  my  careful  view,  I  do  not 
see  that  I  could  help  holding  it.  If  it  was  said,  *  Truth  is  the 
generally  believed,  and  the  generally  believed  here  is  that  60 
is  the  number' ;  I  should  say.  If  I  could  call  it  to  myself  belief 
or  supposition,  I  would  defer:  I  do  not  want  to  set  up  my 
judgment :  but  it  is  dght.  The  turning  my  eyes  that  way  and 
the  persuasion  that  there  is  before  my  eyes  the  fact,  which  we 
call  the  quicksilver  at  50,  are  two  things  equally  unescapable  by 
me :  you  bear  witness  with  me  to  the  truth  of  the  former,  and 
since  the  second  presents  itself  to  me  with  equal  evidence,  I 
must  accept  it,  though  you  cannot  bear  witness  to  that. 

The  state  of  things  which  I  have  here  described  cannot  in 
reality,  unless  exceptionally,  take  place  in  a  sensation  such 
as  sight,  but  it  serves  as  a  good  illustration  of  what  is  the 
normal  or  ordinary  state  of  things  in  regard  of  opinion.     We 


II] 


RIGHT  AND   DUTY   OF  PRIVATE  JUDGMENT. 


281 


have  the  constant  conflict  going  on  between  our  own  opinion 
or  belief  and  that  of  others,  and  while  we  try  conscientiously  to 
test  the  former  and  see  if  we  can  justify  it  to  ourselves,  we  find 
perhaps  on  the  other  hand,  as  we  look,  more  and  more  of  opinion 
against  us.     As  to  this  we  may  very  likely  have  to  come  in 
practice  to  a  view  somewhat  similar  to  that  of  Mr  Grote,  where 
he  in  effect  says — I  will  keep  my  opinion  as  truth  for  me,  you 
keep  yours  as  truth  for  you.     This  does  not  mean  that  we  have 
arrived,  both  of  us  or  either  of  us,  at  truth,  but  simply  that  it  is 
no  use  saying  any  more  about  the  matter;   that  we  see  no 
reason  to  doubt  our  own  opinion,  but  have  no  means  by  which 
we  can  persuade  the  other  party  of  it.     But  before  we  arrive  at 
this  stage  of  indolent  despair — for  such  it  is,  not  of  philosophical 
reasonableness — we  ought  to  make  sure  of  our  own  opinion  to 
the  utmost  extent  to  which  we  can,  and  (in  this  view)  to  have 
it  with  its  reasons,  clear  before  ourselves,  in  the  first  instance, 
and  then,  in  whatever  way,  to  compare  it  with  that  of  others. 
We  may  be  said,  each  one  of  us,  to  hold  our  individual  opinion 
not  for  ourselves  alone,  but  for  general  intelligence.     To  state 
the  matter  strongly,  unless  we  consider  that  every  one  ought  to 
think  as  we  do,  we  do  not  believe  in  our  own  truth  :  we  do  not 
consider  what  we  think,  to  be  real  truth  and  knowledge.     The 
isolation  of  our  thought,  and  the  holding  it  simply  as  our  best 
way  of  thinking,  and  not,  so  far  as  it  commends  itself  to  us, 
the  best  way  for  everybody,  is  a  denying  to  ourselves  the  notion 
of  truth  altogether.     Unfortunately  as  a  matter  of  fact  it  is 
most  usually  the  case  that  those  who  least  care  to  justify  their 
opinion  to  themselves  are  the   most   ready  to   enforce  it  on 
others:    very   constantly   even   making   the   latter    a   sort   of 
substitute    for    the    former.      But    though,   in    conscientious 
thought,  we  are  thinking  for  others  as  well  as  for  ourselves, 
and  ought  to  be  aware  we  are  doing  so;    we  have  also  to 
remember  that  they  think  as  well  as  we  do ;   and  the  more 
value  we  set  upon  our  own  thought  the  more  shall  we  also, 
in  reason,  set  upon  theirs,  if  only  we  have  reason  to  believe 
they  do  think.     We  here  come  upon  the  same  difficulty  as  in 
the  case  of  the  thermometer:   men  as  we  all  are,  with  the 
same  fact  before  us,  the  supposition  involved  in  the  notion 


282 


RIGHT  AND   DUTY  OF  PRIVATE   JUDGMENT.         [CHAP. 


'knowledge'  is,  that  the  fact  shall  represent  itself  to  all  in 
substance  the  same :  yet  we  are  in  the  unhappy  position,  that, 
whereas  there  are  two  characters  of  knowledge  which  constitute 
its  detinition,  the  one,  that  it  is  (say)  a  faithful  representation 
of  fact  to  the  individual,  the  other,  that  it  is  a  sympathy  or 
region  of  communication  between  intelligent  beings, — we  cannot 
make  these  two  characters  go  together,  and  therefore  are  in 
continual  perplexity. 

As  the  discrepancy  of  opinion  is  infinite,  whereas  that  of 
sensation  is  only  occasional  and  exceptional,  so  the  former  has 
powerful  agencies  to  remedy  it,  while  in  the  latter  we  are 
nearly  helpless.  Opinion  or  judgment  is  formed,  speaking 
roughly,  from  the  putting  together  sensations  or  original 
experiences,  which  process  we  will,  still  roughly,  call  reasoning. 
In  reasoning,  as  in  seeing,  we  are  (so  far  as  we  feel  we  are  doing 
it  truly)  doing  it  for  others  as  well  as  for  ourselves.  Reasoning 
may  be  described  as  a  mental  view  on  our  part  of  a  connexion 
of  facts  which  commends  itself  to  us  as  true  or  as  a  more 
general  fact,  a  part  of  our  notion  of  its  truth  being  that,  when 
put  into  language  and  communicated  to  others,  it  will  commend 
itself  to  them  as  it  commends  itself  to  us.  We  may  find  that 
the  view  we  take  of  the  cogency  of  a  piece  of  reasoning  may  be 
different  from  the  view  which  others  take :  but  this  discrepancy 
of  view,  while  it  is  more  likely  to  occur  than  in  a  case  of 
sensation,  has  at  the  same  time  more  remedies  against  it, 
because  the  principles  upon  which  the  reasoning  should  go 
may  be  agreed  on  beforehand,  and  because  the  reasoning  may 
be  exhibited  in  various  forms  so  as  to  be  well  tested  and 
thoroughly  understood.  The  doing  all  this  is  discussion^  which 
stops,  as  soon  as  we  come  to  the  original  experiences  upon 
which  all  rests.  And  hence  it  is  that  discussion  is  of  no  value 
unless  there  is  beneath  it  a  good  basis  of  conscientious  and 
careful  individual  feeling.  It  is  this  individual  feeling  about 
which  we  are  autonomous,  this  which  is  our  'private  judgment.' 
The  question  between  it  and  conclusions  arrived  at  from  it  by 
reasoning  and  discussion,  on  the  one  side,  and  belief  upon 
authority  on  the  other,  presents  itself  to  Mr  Grote  and  to  me 
(to  come  round  to  the  point  from  which  we  began)  in  rather  a 


II.] 


RIGHT   AND   DUTY  OF  PRIVATE  JUDGMENT. 


283 


different  manner.  Where  he  sees  a  tyranny  of  authority,  I  am 
more  disposed  to  see  a  want  of  truth  of  individuals  to  them- 
selves. We  had  better  have  a  belief  upon  authority,  (for  the 
chances  are  that  the  authority  will  be  in  some  degree  at  least 
worthy  of  regard)  than  an  individual  view,  or  what  we  think 
such,  formed  carelessly  and  unconscientiously  and  only  half 
realized,  valued  rather  because  it  is  ours  than  because  it  is 
true,  and  which,  therefore,  we  do  not  choose  to  bring  into  fair 
contact  with  other  opinions,  fearing  that  it  would  not  stand  the 
shock  of  the  Socratic  elenchus. 


CHAPTER  III. 

RELATIVITY   OF   KNOWLEDGE,    GENERAL 
AND   PARTICULAR. 

With  Mr  Grote  the  character  of  knowledge  as  *  relative* 
does  not  at  all  destroy  its  character  of  being  real  knowledge,  it 
being  the  fact,  not  only  that  we  cannot  conceive  knowledge 
other  than  relative,  but  that  relativity  attaches  to  the  very 
notion  of  knowledge — that  knowledge  is  inconceivable  other- 
wise. 

The  most  general  relativity  of  knowledge  is  described  by 
Mr  Grote  as  the  necessary  relation  of  an  object  to  a  subject — in 
other  words,  the  necessity,  if  we  want  to  conceive  a  thing  or 
fact,  of  conceiving  a  thinking  subject  with  it — in  other  words 
again,  the  necessary  involvement,  in  the  notion  of  an  object  of 
thought,  of  a  subject  thinking  it ;  the  fact  involved  in  know- 
ledge, as  it  is  put  by  Mr  Ferrier,  being  not  simply  an  object, 
but  a  subject  knowing  an  object. 

This  view  of  relativity  raises  the  question,  Is  existence 
nothing  without  intelligence  perceiving  it  ?  Is  there  no  such 
thing  as  '  knowableness '  distinct  from  'knownness'?  Suppose 
we  could,  by  that  absolute  power  which  belongs  to  imagination, 
remove  from  the  universe  all  intelligence,  would  there  remain 
nothing,  or  something  entirely  different  from  what  was  con- 
sidered existence  before  intelligence  was  removed  ? 


CHAP.  III.] 


RELATIVITY   OF   KNOWLEDGE, 


285 


This  very  general  view  of  the  relativeness  of  knowledge 
only  exists  on  the  supposition  that,  in  forming  our  notion  of 
knowledge,  we  start,  if  I  may  so  express  it,  with  the  subject ; 
and  in  reality,  though  it  does  not  at  first  appear  so,  this  general 
view   of  relativity   is   inconsistent   with   the   more   particular 
views.     When  it  is  said.  Object  involves  subject,  and  this  is 
relativity— if  by  s^ject  is  meant  subject  in  the  same  generality 
which  the  term  object  here  has,  there  is  nothing  which  with 
any  significance  can  be  called  relativity— if  by  subject  is  meant 
particular  subject,  then  the  statement  is  not  necessarily  true. 
If  we  mean  that  the  notion  of  existence  involves  the  thing 
being  understood  to  exist,  I  do  not  see  any  relativity.     By 
relativity  we  mean,  I  suppose,  that  the  thing  in  question  is,  in 
its  relation  to  some  thing,  different  from  what  it  is  in  itself,  or 
in   its   relation   to   some   other   thing:   but   the   thing  being 
undei-stood  to  exist  in  the  way  just  mentioned,  makes  no  sort 
of  difference  of  this  kind.     If  we  mean  that  '  the  notion  of 
existence  involves  the  thing  being  conceived  as  existing  by  an 
intelligent   being  with  particular  faculties  of  knowledge '—in 
which  case  there  would  be  relativity— I  deny  the  truth  of  the 
proposition.     Of  course,  in  even  talking  of  anything  as  existent, 
I  am  conceiving  it  by  my  own  faculties  of  knowledge :  but  this 
is  no  further  to  the  purpose  in  this  question,  than  to  make  me 
understand  that  I  cannot  realize,  as  present  to  my  mind  in  any 
way,  an  object,  or  existence,  in  the  general  sense  here  spoken 
of:   but  there  is  no  reason  why  I  should  not  conceive  there 
being  such.     The  notion  of  the  particular  relativity  of  know- 
ledge implies  our  forming,  as  we  do  form,  the  notion  of  the 
conception  of  the  same  existence  by  different  kinds  of  intelligent 
beings  with  different  faculties  of  knowledge,  and  we  say.  Each 
of  them  has  relative  knowledge  of  it.     But  the  meaning  of 
difference  in  the  manners  of  conception  depends  upon  there 
being  some  one  thing  which  is  thus  differently  conceived :  and 
this  one  thing,  which  is  the  basis  of  all  the  conceptions,  we 
may  suppose  abstracted  from  them— none  of  them  being,  from 
their   very   differences,  essential   to   it— and   not   particularly 
conceived   at  all.      To    the    notion  of   existence    there  goes 


{^- 


286 


\' 


RELATIVITY   OF   KNOWLEDGE, 


[chap. 


capability  of  these  various  kinds  of  conception,  not  actually  of 
any  one  of  them,  which  is  what  would  be  relativity.  When  it 
is  conceived  in  any  of  these  various  ways,  there  arises  particular 
relativity.  If  we  suppose  a  general  relativity,  relativity  arising 
out  of  the  simple  fact  that  existence  is  understood  by  intelli- 
gence, we  destroy  all  meaning  in  the  particular  relativity,  the 
point  of  which  is  the  different  conception  of  the  same  supposed 
existence  by  different  intelligences. 

This  will  be  easier  to  understand,  if,  instead  of  starting 
from  the  subject,  we  start  from  the  side  of  the  object.     We 
then  may  freely  make  the  supposition,  for  of  course  it  is  no 
more,  of  what  I  will  call  an  *  objiciend,'  which  is  the  object  of 
thought  with  all  such  portions  of  it  removed  as  are  relative  to 
the   faculties    of   any  particular  intelligence.     This   objiciend 
translates  itself  into  various  objects  of  thought  according  to 
the  particular  kind  of  intelligence  to  which  it  presents  itself. 
It  is  in  this  that  the  relativity  consists  :  and  the  supposition  of 
the  non-relative  objiciend  is  necessary  for  the  relativity  to  have 
meaning.     'A   thing'   has   a   double    meaning    to    us,    which 
duplicity,  though  not  of  importance  in  ordinary  thought,  is  of 
great  importance  in  regard  of  many  questions  of  philosophy. 
When  we  say,  we  see  a  tree,  it  is  with  more  or  less  feeling  that 
the  colour,  e.g.  of  the  tree  would  not  be  what  it  is,  unless  our 
eyes    were    what    they   are — with    more    or    less    feeling,   as 
metaphysicians   some   time  ago  used  to  express  it,  that  the 
colour  is  in  the  tree  or  that  it  is  not.     By  the  term  '  tree '  we 
mean   a  something   supposed   independent   of    us,   which   we 
suppose  to  have  existence  for  intelligences  (supposing  there  are 
such)    different    from   our   own — though    with   what   kind   of 
appearance,  we  cannot  tell:   and  yet  when  we  say  'the  tree' 
we  mean  the  object,  which  we  say  also  is  green  in  virtue  of  the 
effect  of  the  light  from  it  on  our  particular  sense.     That  is  to 
say,  we  mean  by  *  the  tree,'  undistinguished  in  our  mind,  what 
philosophers  call  the  thing  in  itself,  the  'objiciend,'  and  also 
the  phenomenon  or  thing  as  it  presents  itself  to  us,  clothed 
with  its  various  relations  to  our  particular  sensiveness, — the 
object  of  sight  as  distinguished  from  the  objiciend  or  thing 


III.] 


GENERAL   AND   PARTICULAR. 


287 


which  we  want  to  know,  and  talk  of  as  if  we  did  know,  which 
latter  may  be  called  the  object  of  an  effort  at  knowledge,  rather 
than  the  object  of  knowledge  itself 

The  important  relativity  then  is  the  particular  relativity, 
and  it  appears  to  me  that  what  is  to  be  said  about  this  is  that 
the  human  mind  is  in  a  manner  at  issue  with  itself,  or  thinks, 
if  we  like  so  to  express  it,  with  an  undistinguishingness,  from 
which  it  cannot  escape,  of  two  different  things,  the  actual 
phenomenon  before  it,  and  the  non-relative  fact  which  presents 
itself  to  its  intelligence  as  this  phenomenon:  the  former 
involves  with  it  inferior  fact,  truth,  reality,  knowledge;  the 
latter  the  full  and  desired. 

The  notions  of  reality,  truth,  knowledge,  as  they  are  formed, 
are  non-relative,  and  in  my  view  would  not  be  formed  at  all,  if 
from  the  first  we  had  the  feeling  that  we  could  not  get  beyond 
the  relative.  It  is  an  accompanying  feeling  of  all  our  sensations 
and  all  our  thought,  that  it  is  good  and  true,  so  far  as  it  is  good 
and  true,  for  others  as  well  as  for  ourselves.  What  we  want  to 
attain,  in  wishing  for  knowledge,  is  something  good  for  all 
intelligence,  not  something  private,  or  (if  we  form  the  notion  of 
other  genera  of  intelligent  beings)  generic  to  the  human  race. 
This  latter  we  cherish  as  knowledge  in  virtue  of  its  being 
common  to  us  and  other  human  beings,  i.e.  in  virtue  of  what 
there  is  in  it  non-relative:  but  as  soon  as  we  begin  to  look 
upon  it  as  only  a  particular  manner  of  thinking,  whether  it  be 
individual  or  generic,  all  its  charm  as  knowledge  vanishes. 
The  charm  of  knowledge  is  its  presumed  bringing  us  face  to 
face  with  fact,  making  us  in  a  manner  masters  of  our  position, 
enabling  us  to  exercise  our  freedom,  and  without  fear  to  choose 
our  action  for  ourselves:  as  soon  as  our  notion  of  the  faith- 
fulness of  this  knowledge  to  fact  is  vitiated,  all  the  charm 
vanishes.  We  are  no  longer  free  :  intelligent  beings  no  longer 
understand  each  other. 

However  I  must  stop.  Non-relative,  full,  simple,  absolute, 
truth  or  knowledge  is  what  we  mean  by  truth  or  knowledge, 
and  we  cannot  make  ourselves  mean  anything  else :  but  they 
are  ideals,  they  are  what  we  think  of,  hope  for,  struggle  after. 


4] 
I, 


288 


RELATIVITY   OF   KNOWLEDGE. 


[chap.  III. 


(■ 


while  what  we  gain  in  the  effort  is  relative  knowledge,  from 
which  as  in  the  case  of  individuality,  we  may  more  and  more 
disentangle  the  exclusively  relative  element,  and  come  towards 
our  ideal. 


II 


BOOK  V. 


IDEALISM  AND   POSITIVISM. 


1: 

ii 


M. 


19 


CHAPTER  I. 

INADEQUACY   OF   THE   POSITIVIST   VIEW   OF   TRUTH 

AND   LIFE. 

I  WILL  DOW  attempt  a  general  summary  of  the  view  which 
I  have  given  above,  and  describe  what  seems  to  me  the 
importance  of  it. 

So  far  as  we  make  the  basis  of  our  thoughts  the  world  of 
phenomena,  that  which  is  most  intimate  to  us,— ourselves  with 
our  consciousness,— remains  alien  to  our  thought,  and  from  the 
very  nature  of  the  one  and  the  other,  not  comprehendible  in  it. 
The   fact   that   we  know  is   prior   to,   and   logically  more 
comprehensive  than,  the  fact  that  what  we  know  is.     We  assert 
of,  or  attribute  to,  that  which  we  perceive,  the  existence  which 
we  feel  in  ourselves.     Our  thought  includes  its  existence,  but 
its  existence  does  not  include  our  thought.     When  we  state 
that  it  exists,  we  state  only  a  part  of  the  fact :  when  we  state 
that  we,  existing,  know  that  it  exists,  we  state  the  whole.    And 
we  must  consequently  be  wrong  in  our  view  if  we  state  a  part 
of  the  fact  in  such  a  manner  as  to  negative,  or  reduce  to 
unimportance,   or   pervert,   the   whole.     What  I   have   called 
phenomenalism  is  the  giving  exclusive  attention  to  the  part : 
what  I  have  called  wrong  phenomenalism  or  positivism  is  the 
doing  so  in  such  a  manner  as  to  pervert  the  whole. 

It  is  therefore  of  importance,  for  any  general  view,  that  we 
should  consider  not  only  what  things  are,  but  what  our  know- 
ledge of  them  is,  means,  or  implies. 

19—2 


1  1  n 


292 


INADEQUACY  OF  THE   POSITIVIST  VIEW 


[chap. 


That  we  know  them  implies  of  course  that  they  can  be 
known:   and  Hhat  they  can  be  known'  is  in  my  view  only 
another  way  of  describing  a  fitness  or  preparedness  in  them  to 
be  known.     But  if  this  is  so,  here  is  a  great  and  important 
general  fact  about  them,  far  more  important  than  any  par- 
ticular fact,  implied  or  presupposed  in  our  very  first  notion 
of    them.      This    knowableness  of    them,   or  preparedness   of 
them    for    knowledge,    is   what    philosophers    have   variously 
expressed  by  saying  that  there  is  mind  in  them ;  that  there  is 
reason  (not  thinking  reason,  but  thought  reason)  in  them ;  that 
if  they  had  not  been  known  from  the  first,  they  never  could 
have  been  known;   if  they  had  not  been  planned,  a  plan  of 
them,  or  in  them,  could  never  have  been  discovered,  as  our 
knowledge  discovers  it.     Knowing  is  therefore  mind  meeting 
mind;   mind  analysing,  or  dissecting,  what  mind  must  have 
compounded;  mind  sympathizing  with  mind,  as  they  proceed 
in  their  opposite  directions. 

Again :  knowableness  or  order  (for  they  are  the  same  thing) 
is  not  something  which  we  unexpectedly  find  in  the  universe, 
any  more  than  being  known  is  an  accident^  which  has  happened 
to  the  universe,  after  its  continuance  for  some  time  without 
such  accident.  As  the  universe  must  always  have  been  known, 
so  we  from  the  beginning  of  our  knowledge,  must  have  known 
the  universe.  As  one  word  of  a  language  implies  the  whole 
system  of  it,  so  does  one  particular  of  knowledge  involve  thought 
of  the,  as  yet  unparticularized,  universe. 

Order  or  knowableness  in  the  universe  is  then  implied  by 
us,  or  we  may  say,  understood,  so  far  as  anything  is  understood, 
in  the  first  act  of  knowledge.  And  the  key  to  open  this  order, 
the  clue  to  follow  it  by,  the  alphabet  to  read  it  by,  is  the 
recognition,  continually  corrected,  of  ourselves  in  it.  That 
knowledge  comes  to  us  with  this  character  of  recognition,  is 
what  the  ancient  philosophy  noted,  when  it  spoke  of  knowledge 
as  the  remembrance  of  a  former  existence. 

The  process  of  correction  of  this  self-recognition  divides 
knowledge  into  two  parts.     The  corrected  knowledge  is  pheno- 

1  Cf.  Exp.  59. 


I-] 


OF  TRUTH   AND  LIFE. 


293 


menalism:  but  the  correction  is  not  condemnation  of  the  former 
process,  which  in  reality,  always  goes  on,  and  is  still  our  way  of 
knowing,  the  later  or  corrected  process  being  partial  only,  and 
not  of  a  nature  in  everything  to  supersede  the  other.  But 
the  process  of  self-recognition  becomes  the  process  of  mind- 
recognition,  which  is  the  important  part,  and  the  real  character 
of  it,  from  the  first.  Or,  if  we  like  rather  so  to  express  it,  side  by 
side  with  the  correction  of  our  self-recognition,  which  generates 
phenomenal  knowledge,  but  which  still  leaves  the  self-recog- 
nition uncorrected  for  some  lines  of  thought,  there  occurs  an 
elevation  or  generalization  of  this  self-recognition,  where  it  is 
left  existing.  The  idea  of  the  universe,  as  consisting  of  beings 
or  things  like  us,  and  things  which  we  can  make  or  use,  becomes 
exalted  into  the  idea  of  the  universe  as  exhibiting  mind  and 
involving  purpose,  mind  such  as  we  exercise  in  ordering  and 
arranging  things,  and  purpose  such  as  induces  us  to  construct 
or  make  things. 

For  my  own  part,  I  seem  to  recognize  a  higher  legitimacy 
in  the  transformed  self-recognition,  which  shows  us  in  the 
Universe  a  Planner  or  Maker  with  his  ideas  and  his  purposes, 
than  I  recognize  in  the  corrected  self-recognition,  which  shows 
us  in  the  universe  the  concurrences  and  sequences  of  a  variety 
of  phenomenal  elements,  forces,  or  parts  of  any  kind  of 
phenomenal  nature.  There  seems  to  me  to  be  a  nature  above 
all  this :  a  nature  of  which  man,  in  virtue  of  his  consciousness 
and  knowledge,  is  partaker,  just  as,  in  virtue  of  his  body  and 
its  sensation,  he  is  a  portion  of  the  phenomenal  nature.  And 
it  is  this  nature  which  the  one  part  of  his  thought  points  to, 
with  as  much  legitimacy  as  the  other  to  phenomenal  nature. 

The  positivist  scheme  of  thought  is  really  the  imagination 
of  a  state  of  things  in  which  consciousness  nowhere  exists, 
underlying  in  thought,  (and  therefore  with  a  natural  suggestion 
of  its  preceding  in  time)  a  state  of  things  in  which  it  does 
exist.  It  makes  particular  or  qualified  existence  an  earlier 
idea,  or  an  idea  of  a  higher  order,  than  knowledge  or  conscious- 
ness. I  do  not  mean  to  imply  that  there  need  be  anything 
irreligious  in  such  a  scheme.  It  is  natural  to  say  that  a  thing 
must  be,  and  must  be  something,  before  it  can  know.     Thus  we 


> 


ii 


294 


INADEQUACY  OF  THE  POSITIVIST  VIEW 


[chap. 


may  say  that  God  is  a  being,  who  (as  a  quasi-accident)  knows. 
But  if  his  knowing  is  in  this  point  of  view  a  quasi-accident,  so 
is  his  being,  and  all  being.  In  the  supposition  of  existence  as 
in  this  manner  anterior  to  knowledge,  anything  being  what  it 
is,  must  be  of  the  nature  of  accident,  for  there  can  be  no  reason 
for  it. 

Let  us  endeavour  as  far  as  we  can  to  grasp  what  seems  to 
m^  the  true  positivist  notion,  and  think  about  things  only  that 
they  are,  without  any  supposition  of  reason,  either  as  shown  in 
what  they  are,  or  (as  yet)  resulting  from  what  they  are.  Let 
us  suppose  the  elements  of  matter,  whatever  they  may  be,  or, 
going  beyond  them,  let  us  suppose  something  from  which  what 
we  call  matter  has  become  evolved.  And  let  us  conceive  of 
ourselves,  not  in  virtue  of,  or  by  means  of,  that  consciousness 
which  is  our  ordinary  road  to  that  conception ;  but  as  results 
evolved  from  these  material  elements.  We  have  then  an  order 
of  positivist  facts,  which  we  may  call  matter  to  begin  with,  life 
superadded  to  this,  consciousness  superadded  again,  then  perhaps 
freedom :  these  all  being  supposed,  not  as  known  to  us  by  our 
consciousness,  but  as  far  as  possible  independently  of  conscious- 
ness by  abstracting  from  knowledge  the  objective  side  of  it. 
We  have  then  first  something  somehow  qualified,  which  we 
call,  e.g.,  matter :  then  a  quality  adding  itself  to  parts  of  this, 
which  we  call  life :  another  to  parts  again  of  this  living  matter, 
which  we  call  consciousness,  and  so  on. 

In  all  this  we  must  keep  carefully  out  of  thought  the 
manner  in  which  things  become  known  to  us.  Smell,  e.g.  must 
be  treated  as  a  process  between  portions  of  matter  and  nerves 
of  the  being  which  we  call  ourselves:  that  it  gives  us  knowledge 
in  regard  of  the  things  in  which  it  resides,  is  what  we  must  not 
consider,  because,  so  far  as  we  do,  we  endanger  (logically)  the 
independent  reality  of  the  thing:  if  we  admit  the  idea  of 
ourselves  as  knowing,  we  cannot  help  also  admitting  the  notion 
that  this  our  knowing  the  thing  may  constitute  the  real  fact 
about  it;  and  the  purpose  of  the  present  or  positivist  sup- 
position which  I  am  making  is  to  exclude  this  latter  notion. 

Of  the  whole  positivist  scheme,  the  great  idea  is  fact  or 
existence:   among  existing  beings  there  are  considered  to  be 


I] 


OF  TRUTH  AND  LIFE. 


295 


some  who  think  or  make  suppositions  about  things :  truth,  in 
this  view,  is  these  suppositions  being  accordant  with  fact.    It  is 
indeed  hardly  possible,  in  this  view,  to  bring  out  the  idea  of 
truth  with  any  clearness:  i.e.  we  can  hardly  hold  sufficiently 
firm  the  necessary  consideration,  that  the  supposition  is  to  be 
posterior  to  the  fact,  or  refrain  from  asking  ourselves  how  the 
fact  can  be  known  to  be  fact  but  by  supposition,  and  where  we 
are  to  go,  in  the  last  resort,  to  find  out  that  the  supposition  is 
right.    The  idea  of  truth,  in  the  positivist  view,  has  to  be  aided 
by  various  other  considerations,  besides  that  which  I  have  given. 
The  essence  of  truth  is  its  conformity  with  fact,  but  the  marks  of 
it  are  such  as  its  consistency  with  other  truth,  its  being  the 
common  thought  of  different  minds,  its  being  that  which  we 
can  act  upon  to  an  expected  result. 

I  have  mentioned  the  logical  error  involved  in  such  intel- 
lectual philosophy  as  would  start  from  the  notion  of  an  existing 
order  of  things  of  which  we  form  a  part,  and  then  would 
endeavour  to  investigate  the  manner  in  which  we  come  to 
perceive,  or  to  have  an  idea  of,  or  to  understand,  the  particulars 
or  objects  in  this  order  of  things.  We  cannot  superadd  the 
idea  of  knowledge  to  that  of  existence  and  then  analyse  the 
knowledge,  because  if  we  do  so,  the  idea  of  knowledge  thus 
analysed  disintegrates  (logically)  the  idea  of  existence  which  we 
had  previously  gone  upon,  and  all  becomes  confusion.  Con- 
fusion of  this  kind  from  which  there  is  no  way  out  is  the  true 
meaning  of  scepticism.  It  was  in  this  manner  that  Berkeley  and 
Hume  disintegrated  the  Lockian  edifice. 

There  is  an  error  of  the  same  kind  involved  in  the  building 
any  moral  philosophy  on  a  positivist  basis.  The  idea  of  freedom 
or  choice  of  action  will  not  superadd  itself  to  that  of  a  state  of 
things  independent  of  it,  without  pulling  this  latter  to  pieces 
and  altogether  changing  the  character  of  it. 

Much  of  Epicureanism  and  Utilitarianism  may  be  considered 
a  vain  attempt  to  mediate,  or  to  find  a  halfway  standing  point, 
between  two  schemes  of  thought  which  will  not  thus  be  brought 
together. 

The  idealist  or  non -positivist  scheme  is  that  which  starts 
from   what   (philosophically)   is  the   full  or  complete  fact   or 


i'i 


Hi 


1 


296 


INADEQUACY   OF  THE   POSITIVIST  VIEW 


[chap. 


phenomenon,  viz.  consciousness  or  knowledge,  accompanied 
with  power  or  freedom^  (whatever,  in  further  analysis,  this 
latter  may  turn  out  to  be). 

According  to  this,  knowledge  is  not  (in  its  essence)  a  result 
of  existence,  but  is  an  analysing,  criticising,  judging  of  it :  it 
looks  upon  it  from  above,  not  from  below.  The  argument  of 
Natural  Theology,  that  all  things  which  exist  must  have  been 
created,  is  simply  a  recognition  of  the  fact,  that  the  mind 
cannot  be  got  to  rest  in  the  notion  of  particular  existence, 
as  the  end  of  its  view.  '  How  comes  a  thing  to  be  what  it 
is'?  is  what  we  cannot  help  asking:  and  it  is  exactly  the 
same  mental  activity  which  urges  us  to  the  earliest  steps 
of  knowledge  and  which  urges  us  to  the  last  and  remotest. 
Knowledge  is  really  a  phase  or  mode  of  consciousness  and,  the 
object  as  well  as  the  subject  being  a  part  of  itself,  it  is  really 
mind  that  is  its  object  as  well  as  its  subject;  and  existence, 
the  more  immediate  object,  is  such,  in  virtue  of  its  being  looked 
upon  as  the  result  of  mind  or  intelligence.  Knowledge  is  the 
sympathy  of  intelligence  with  intelligence,  through  the  medium 
of  qualified  or  particular  existence. 

Knowledge  and  freedom,  or  choice  of  action,  go  closely 
together,  and  that  judgment  which  is  so  important  a  part  of 
knowledge,  is  of  equal  importance  to  freedom.  Hence  come  those 
ideas,  which,  along  with  the  idea  of  truth,  enter  into  the  process 
of  knowledge  as  naturally  going  on.  We  cannot  really  make 
that  distinction  between  the  processes  of  reasoning  and  imagina- 
tion which  is  often  attempted,  nor  characterize  the  latter  as  '  a 
forward  delusive  faculty'  unless  we  are  agreed  to  mean  by  it 
only  such  portion  of  our  mental  discourse  as  is  really  delusive 
and  mistaken. 

This  sort  of  opinion  about  imagination  is  really  founded  on 
the  supposition  that  the  positivist  scheme  of  existence  is  first  in 
idea,  knowledge  following  on  that,  and  then  again  imagination 
on  that,  as  a  sort  of  otiose,  superfluous,  addition  to  it,  or 
atmosphere  surrounding  it.  In  Plato  (where  the  process  of 
knowledge  is  followed  in  an  opposite  direction,  and  the  scheme 
is  idealist)  '  good,'  or  '  that  which  it  is  well  should  be,'  is  first  in 
idea,  then  follows  knowledge  proper,  which  is  of  the  '  ideas,'  or 


t] 


OF  TRUTH   AND  LIFE. 


297 


as  we  may  say,  the  meanings  of  things,  and  then  follows  such 
knowledge  as  can  be  had  of  particular  existence,  or  that  fluctu- 
ating element  in  which  these  ideas  are  embodied :  this  is  that 
which,  in  Plato,  under  the  name  of  ho^a,  is  the  superfluous 
and  the  delusive. 

It  is  as  unphilosophical  and  as  logically  wrong  to  try  to 
construct  a  moral  philosophy  on  the  positivist  basis,  as  it  was  on 
the  part  of  the  pre-Baconians  (in  Bacon's  view)  to  conclude 
what  must  be  the  actual  facts  and  laws  of  material  nature  from 
their  own  a  priori  imaginations  as  to  what  would  be  most 
beautiful  and  harmonious.  Positivism,  which  has  its  full  value 
within  its  own  province,  is  as  much  injured,  and  the  real  fact  is 
as  much  distorted,  by  the  former  process,  as  by  the  latter.  If  we 
have  any  idea  about  directing  human  action,  and  about  one  way 
of  it  being  better  than  another,  or  being  what  human  action 
ought  to  be,  we  vitiate  and  falsify  our  positivist  view  by  de- 
termining to  find  in  it  some  place  for  this  idea,  which  does  not 
belong  to  it  and  will  not  harmonize  with  it.  The  notion  of 
duty,  or  of  one  thing  being  better  than  another,  coming  into  a 
scheme  of  positivism  blows  it  all  up. 

While  therefore  idealism  must  be  considered  the  wider  view 
and  that  containing  the  higher  truth,  upon  which,  so  far  as 
direction  of  action  is  of  consequence  to  us,  we  must  proceed, 
still  there  is  no  such  contradiction  between  idealism  and  a 
reasonable  positivism,  as  the  language  of  Plato  and  as  the 
encroachments  of  positivists  might  lead  one  to  imagine.  For 
the  discovery  of  what  is  and  has  been  actual,  physical,  fact,  we 
must  be  faithful  to  the  impressions  of  our  senses  and  the  treat- 
ment of  these  by  our  logical  powers,  and  no  idealism  must 
interfere  here  in  a  province  which  does  not  belong  to  it.  The 
more  our  idealism  is  true  and  complete,  the  less  will  it  be 
either  meddling  itself,  or  allow  of  other  things  meddling  with  it. 
Knowledge  or  consciousness  is  not  itself  a  physical  fact,  homo- 
geneous with  physical  facts  or  forces  even  of  the  most  refined 
kind,  such  as  magnetism  or  any  other.  When  we  speak  of  the 
universe  as  the  sum  of  existence,  and  ourselves  as  a  part  of  it, 
we  reserve,  and  we  cannot  help  reserving,  the  primary  conscious- 
ness, which   presents   to   us  ourselves  and  our  knowledge  as 


I 


298 


INADEQUACY  OF  THE  POSITIVIST   VIEW 


[chap. 


existing  more  necessarily  for  ourselves  than  even  the  universe 
exists  before  us. 

The  positivist  view  has  the  double  strength  of  the  partial 
philosophic  truth  which  there  is  in  it,  and  the  entire  popular 
truth,  it  representing  the  view  to  which  our  intellect  evidently 
impels  us.  But  philosophic  and  popular  truth  are  both  to  be 
found  also  in  such  an  idea  as  '  that  which  is  right  to  be  done  * 
or  'that  which  is  beautiful  to  be  looked  at':  and  these  are  ideas 
which  the  positivist,  from  his  point  of  view,  is  obliged  either  to 
treat  as  vain  sentiment,  imagination,  or  illusion,  or  else  to  refer 
to  origins  in  fact,  to  which  they  cannot  be  referred  without 
destroying  their  significance.  The  true  idealist  point  of  view 
will  comprehend  his,  whereas  his  will  not  comprehend  that. 

Again,  while  on  the  one  hand  it  is  a  paj^t  of  our  natural 
impulse,  as  to  knowledge,  to  attribute  to  the  objects  of  our 
knowledge  a  reality  independent  of  ourselves,  or  of  any 
one's  knowledge  of  them,  on  the  other  hand  our  natural  im- 
pulse is  not  merely  to  attribute  fact  and  reality  to  the  objects 
of  perception.  We  want  to  know  also  the  reasons  of  them,  we 
want  to  do  more  than  to  classify,  we  want  to  understand :  and 
we  have  no  notion  that  in  the  advance  of  our  knowledge  we 
are  after  all  not  really  getting  beyond  extended  perception. 
Positivism  consists  in  the  throwing  off  as  extraneous  all  other 
considerations  except  this — What  is  the  fact  ?  The  intellectual 
progress  of  the  human  race  consists,  according  to  positivists,  in 
its  having  learnt  by  degrees  to  do  this.  This  is  well,  so  long  as 
we  are  in  the  region  of  fact  or  of  the  objects  of  knowledge. 
But  the  supposition  of  a  reason  for  things  being  what  they  are,  is 
an  essential  part  of  the  natural  effort  to  know,  or  process  of 
knowledge.  The  positivist  view  that  the  search  for  this  reason 
is  really  only  the  passage  from  one  fact  to  a  further  or  antecedent 
fact,  is  an  abstraction  from  the  more  complete  view,  in  the  same 
manner  as  positivism  altogether  is  an  abstraction  from  the  com- 
plete view  of  knowledge.  The  supposition  of  a  reason  for  things 
being  what  they  are,  is  the  same  as  the  supposition  of  a  way 
in  which  it  is  well  that  they  should  be,  as  distinguished  from 
other  ways  in  which  they  would  be  less  well.  Here  we  come 
into  a  wide  region  of  ivhat  might  be,  as  distinguished  from  what 


V 


1.] 


OF  TRUTH  AND  LIFE. 


299 


is.  And  in  this  region,  while  what  is  is  matter  of  perception, 
what  is  sought,  or  taken  interest  in,  is  that  which  it  is  good 
or  well  should  he,  and  the  interest  in  knowledge  is  not  only 
in  the  observation  of  what  is,  but  in  the  observing  its  relation 
to  that  which  it  is  good  or  well  should  be,  which  is  the  reason 
of  it. 

The  partial  or  positivist  view  of  the  process  of  knowledge 
reverses  the  relative  position  of  imagination  and  observation, 
as  compared  with  their  position  in  the  complete  view  of  that 
process.     And  the  consideration  how  this  is  so,  shows  in  regard 
of  the  positivist  view  that,  like  all  abstractions,  it  fails  to  a 
certain  degree  not  only  in  completeness,  but  in  truth.     Know- 
ledge is  more  truly  a  fixing  of  vague  imagination,  than  imagina- 
tion is  an  extravagation  of  the  mind  round  about  the  nucleus, 
knowledge.     Imagination  is  logically  first,  knowledge  second. 
As  the  knowledge  of  a  single  word  of  a  language,  as  a  word, 
implies  the  idea  of  language,  or  as  the  knowledge  of  a  single 
organ,  as  an  organ,  implies  the  idea  of  organization,  so  the  first 
particular  of  knowledge  implies  the  idea  of  a  whole  or  universe 
of  things,  which  is  given  us  in  fact,  in   every  effort  of  our 
consciousness.     Advance  of  knowledge  is  essentially  distinction, 
not  aggregation.     Each  new  particular  of  knowledge  is  not  an 
addition  to,  but  a  newly  observed  part  of,  a  previously  conceived 
whole.      Each   notion   has    its   ground   or   counternotion,   the 
observation  of  which   is  quite   as   important   as  that   of  the 
notion  itself ^ 

And  the  notion  of  our  own  activity,  which  is  the  ground  of 
morals,  must  be  taken  in  relation  to  the  complete  or  idealist 
view  of  knowledge,  not  to  the  other. 

1  Expl.  23,  24. 


i 


i  I 


( 


1 


4 


W 


I 


"^l 


[  1 


CHAPTER  11. 

POSITIVISM  AS   OPPOSED   TO  RATION ARY  PHILOSOPHY  IN 
REGARD   TO   KNOWLEDGE.      ERROR   OF   RELATIVISM. 

Philosophy  is  concerned  either  with  knowledge ,  the  object  of 
which  is  something  in  some  way  existing,  or  with  action^  which 
is  the  bringing  into  existence  something  not  yet  existent.  In 
contradistinction  to  '  positivist,'  I  use  the  word  'rationary'  in 
regard  to  the  former,  and  the  word  '  idealist '  in  regard  to  the 
latter. 

By  rationary  philosophy,  I  mean  that  portion  of  philosophy 
which  deals  with  those  parts,  circumstances,  or  relations  of  things 
(supposing  them  to  be  such)  which  are  not  cognizable  by  the 
senses,  as  we  ordinarily  speak  of  senses.  I  am  in  the  habit  of 
using  for  these  the  terms  '  cause,'  *  reason,'  '  meaning,'  or  others, 
as  the  case  may  be. 

In  order  to  direct  our  action,  however,  we  must  call  into 
operation  thought  of  a  somewhat  different  kind  from  any  which 
enters  into  our  philosophy  of  knowledge.  I  do  not  mean  to  say 
that  idealism  and  rationary  philosophy  are  two  really  dififerent 
things,  but  there  is  convenience  I  think  in  separating  them  for 
the  following  reason.  When  Plato  speaks  of  the  idea  of  the 
good,  this  is  what  I  have  called  *an  ideal ' :  but  when  he  speaks 
of  the  idea  of  a  chair  or  a  table,  (whatever  he  may  mean 
besides)  he  means,  the  meaning  or  purpose  of  them,  what  they 
are  for,  the  subject  of  thought  and  of  rationary  philosophy. 
So,  when  we  are  thinking  what  is  the  proper  ideal  of  our  action 
and  when  we  are  thinking  what  is  the  purpose  of  a  chair,  we 


CHAP.  II.]        POSITIVISM— RATIONARY   PHILOSOPHY. 


301 


are  in  both  cases  speculating  and  imagining :  there  is  in  both 
cases  a  right  and  a  wrong,  whether  or  not  we  hit  the  former : 
and  the  rightness  is  in  both  cases  the  expression  oi  fact :  it  is 
upon  something  that  is,  that  depends,  as  well  whether  we  have 
taken  the  ideal  rightly,  as  whether  we  have  hit  the  right 
purpose  of  the  chair:  we  are  trying  to  know  therefore  in  the 
forming  the  ideal,  as  well  as  in  the  other  case,  and  we  are 
acting  upon  such  knowledge  as  we  can  get.  But  the  fact 
which  the  ideal  imperfectly  presents  or  suggests  to  us  is  of  a 
lofty  nature  quite  different  from  the  facts  of  sense  which  the 
thought  of  our  rationary  philosophy  interprets  to  us. 

Positivism,  as  an  erroneous  method  and  as  opposed  to 
rationary  philosophy,  consists  in  maintaining  that,  inasmuch 
as  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  universe  we  are  bound  to 
consider  that  what  we  want  to  know  is  in  nature,  therefore  our 
proper  way  of  gaining  knowledge  is  only  what  I  may  call 
*adstance'  or  presence  with  nature.  In  studying  nature  it  is 
important  not  to  confuse  with  nature  (except  so  far  as  it  is  a 
question  of  nature  itself)  the  different  question,  how  we  come 
to  know  nature,  or  anything.  In  the  knowing  and  trying  to 
know,  we  are  to  follow  the  road  which  our  mind  leads  us :  when 
we  know  the  language  of  nature,  we  may  very  fitly  describe  all 
knowledge  as  the  interpretation  of  it,  but  we  have  got  to  learn 
the  language.  Positivism,  as  above,  is  the  failing  to  attribute 
sufficient  importance  to  our  thoughts  about  nature. 

We  should  not  need  processes  or  manners  of  thought  for 
knowledge  of  particular  facts  if  we  were  ubiquitous,  sempiternous, 
and  omnisensive,  i.e.  if  we  could  be  at  each  moment  in  all  places 
and  of  all  times,  and  if  we  had  sensive  powers  for,  that  is,  if  we 
were  consciously  affected  by,  all  the  different  natural  forces  and 
chemical  agents,  as  we  are  by  heat  and  light.  This,  in  fact, 
is  what  the  complete  theory  of  adstance  or  acquaintance  with 
nature  would  require.  As  it  is,  being  confined  to  one  time,  and 
at  one  time  to  one  place,  and  having  a  very  partial  and  limited 
sensive  power,  in  order  to  make  our  one  time  and  place  and 
partial  sensive  power  do  for  all  time  and  place  and  all  nature, 
there  is  required  what  we  call  thought — imagination,  reasoning, 
memory,  much  besides.     That  is,  however  we  may  describe  the 


/ 


I 


i! 


302 


POSITIVISM — RATIONARY   PHILOSOPHY. 


[chap. 


fact  of  knowledge  as,  on  our  part,  simple  adstance  or  presence 
with  nature,  we  cannot  conceive  the  gaining  it  as  such. 

What  we,  with  our  one  time  and  place  and  partial  sensive- 
ness,  are  present  at,  or  have  experience  of,  is  particular  fact 
having  a  history  of  its  own,  by  which  we  mean  a  particular  case 
of  general  fact,  due  to  a  great  variety  of  circumstances  which 
have  happened  in  time.  This  history  we  can  in  some  degree 
follow  and  investigate,  and  are  thus  able  partially  to  make  up 
for  our  being  creatures  of  one  time.  Similarly  we  can  move 
about  and  explore  the  earth,  and  in  a  manner  explore 
places  to  which  we  cannot  actually  get,  as  the  moon  and  sun. 
Observation  and  experience  of  this  kind,  simple  acquaintance 
with  fact,  we  very  often,  in  default  of  better  language,  call 
history  also,  as  natural  history.  In  this  way  we  know  a  great 
many  separate  things,  as  it  is  called  historically,  or  as  matter  of 
fact :  i.e.  they  are  to  us,  as  to  the  manner  of  our  knowing  them, 
what  we  call  accidents.  When  we  talk  of  an  accident,  we  do 
not  mean  that  there  was  no  cause  or  reason  for  it :  we  mean 
that  we  know  it  as  a  particular  isolated  fact,  by  means  of 
information :  a  fact  in  some  degree  exceptional  and  striking  our 
attention :  if  we  speak  of  it  as  an  accident  we  should  mean  in  a 
considerable  degree,  if  as  an  occurrence,  event  &c.,  we  should 
mean  in  a  small  degree  exceptional. 

Now  we  being  what  we  are,  as  I  have  described,  our 
acquaintance  with  nature  in  the  first  instance  is  of  this  partial 
and,  in  a  manner,  isolated  character ;  presenting  to  us  a  number 
of  separate  occurrences,  which  we  know  as  quasi-accidents,  i.e. 
as  things  which  have  happened,  but  which  so  far  as  we  know, 
need  not  have  happened.  It  is  their  having  happened  in  this 
manner  which  is  the  ground  of  our  noticing  them.  Now  the 
positivist,  or  non-rationary  view  of  the  manner  of  our  gaining 
our  knowledge  is  that  this  is  in  substance  all  the  manner  of  it : 
that  this  manner  of  knowing  what  we  know  as  matter  of  fact, 
is  all,  or  the  real,  or  the  proper,  character  of  knowledge.  Now 
I  think  it  will  be  seen  that  it  is  a  different  thing  to  say  that 
knowledge,  supposed  complete,  may  be  looked  at  rightly 
(though  not  exclusively)  as  a  presence  on  our  part  with  nature, 
without  our  taking  account  theii  of  the  fact,  that  not  only 


n.] 


ERROR  OF  RELATIVISM. 


303 


nature  is,  but  also  we  think ;  and  on  the  other  hand  to  say,  as 
the  mis-positivist  method  says,  that  the  process  of  gaining 
knowledge  is  only  the  setting  ourselves  face  to  face  with 
nature,  and  going  through  a  course  of  successive  experience, 
information,  acquisition  of  historical  or  matter-of-fact  know- 
ledge. Against  this  the  position  of  rationary  philosophy  is 
that  the  process  of  gaining  knowledge  is  thinking  and  imagin- 
ing, and  concurrently  with  this,  observing  and  verifying.  When 
we  describe  knowledge  as  a  whole,  we  may  describe  it  equally 
correctly  either  from  the  side  of  thought,  as  thinking  and 
imagining  rightly,  or  from  the  side  of  observation,  as  acquain- 
tance with  nature:  but  when  we  are  describing  it,  in  the 
process,  we  cannot  separate  these  two,  but  must  describe  it 
as  thinking  and  imagining,  and  verifying  the  correctness  of 
our  thought  by  continual  observation  and  exploring. 

If  we  look  at  the   process   of  knowledge  from   the   first, 

whether  in  the  individual  or  in   the   human   race,  we  shall 

find  it  of  the  double  character  which  I  have  just  described. 

The  history  of  our  intellectual  growth  is  the  account  how  we 

are  brought  face  to  face  with  one  fact  of  nature  after  another : 

but  this  is  only  half  the  process :  the  same  history  is  also  the 

account  how  our  minds  are  constantly  at  work  thinking  and 

imagining,  and  how  they  find  some  of  their  imaginations  verified, 

some  not.     Knowledge  is  described  with  equal  accuracy  as  a 

perpetual  aggregation  and  acquisition,  or  as  a  perpetual  analysis 

and  distinction.     And  these  are  not  different  processes,  but  are 

the  same.     The  notion  that  we  can  describe  the  growth  of  our 

knowledge  by  experience,  as  it  is  commonly  called,  and  that 

this  really  represents  all  the  fact,  is  the  error  of  positivism,  as 

the  notion  that  we  bring  something  from  our  mind  to  bear  upon 

something  which  is  in  the  universe,  is  the  error  which  I  have 

called  by  the  name  of  '  relativism.'     It  is  well  to  describe  the 

history  of  the  aggregation  of  our  knowledge,  or  of  our  successive 

acquisitions :  but  to  say  that  this  is  all  that  takes  place,  or  is  a 

sufficient  description  of  the  growth  of  knowledge,  is  entirely 

wrong :  since  the  reverse  statement  is  equally  true ;  and  it  is 

the  two  together  which  present  the  picture  of  our  mind.    In  our 

first  look  at  anything  we  see  the  universe,  and  we  never  see 


304 


POSITIVISM— RATION ARY   PHILOSOPHY. 


[chap. 


anything  more.  All  our  after  knowledge  is  just  as  truly  an 
analysis  of  the  first  thing  we  know  as  it  is  a  huUding  upon  it : 
that  first  thing  could  not  have  been  what  it  was,  unless  other 
things  were  what  they  were,  and  we  could  not  have  known  as 
we  did,  unless  we  were  what  we  are.  When  we  first  open  our 
eyes,  there  is  before  us  a  wide  scene  in  which  we  distinguish 
nothing :  we  begin  with  confusion :  and  growth  of  knowledge  is 
separation  and  distinction. 

I  will  not  go  on  now  about  the  nature  of  the  growth  in 
knowledge,  any  further  than  to  say,  that  every  part  of  know- 
ledge has,  not  its  two  portions,  the  mental  and  objective,  which 
is  the  error  of  relativism,  but  its  two  sides,  as  all  language 
witnesses.  A  thing  comes  into  view,  and  we  see  it :  it  looks 
green,  and  we  see  it  green.  Our  seeing  it  is  not  our  acting 
upon  it,  its  looking  what  it  does  is  not  its  acting  upon  us,  any 
further  than  by  us  is  meant  our  corporeal  organization,  which 
is  itself  a  part  of  the  objective  universe.  We  think,  and  present 
to  ourselves  the  object  as  real ;  the  object  is,  and  makes  itself 
known  to  us  in  whatever  way :  these  are  two  descriptions  of  the 

same  fact,  its  two  sides. 

The  two  errors  of  positivism  and  relativism  run  together  in 
this  way.     The  proposition,  '  Two  straight  lines  cannot  enclose 
a  space'  is  said  on  the  one  side  to  be  *an  intuitive  axiom,'  on 
the  other  to  be  'a  truth  of  experience.'     Suppose  the  latter 
demonstrated.    The  interest  of  the  demonstration  to  the  demon- 
strator lies  in  this,  that  our  type  of  truths  of  experience  is  taken 
from  particular  experiences,  in  regard  of  which  we  have  perhaps 
exercised  our  imagination  and  asked  ourselves.  Is  the  fact  this 
way  or  is  it  that?  and  then,  as  a  matter  of  fact  or  by  way  of 
information,  we  find  out  that  it  is  this  way.    Truths,  as  acquired 
in  this  way,  are  called  cmiingent  (I  would  call  them  *  contin- 
gential,'  i.e.  having  relation  to  contingency*)  as  contrasted  with 
necessary,  and  it  is  considered  that  some   truths  are  of  this 
character,  others,  possibly,  of  the  other.     Consequently,  when  it 
is  demonstrated  that  the  supposed  intuitive  axiom  is  a  truth  of 
experience,  the  impression  is  given,  perhaps  felt,  that   it   is 
demonstrated  that  all  things  might  have  been  other  than  they 

1  Expl.  75. 


Ki 


II.] 


ERROR   OF   RELATIVISM. 


305 


are,  that  it  is  only  a  matter  of  fact,  a  kind  of  chance,  that  they 
are  as  they  are ;  that  there  is  a  sort  of  demand  in  our  mind  for 
something  which  is  true  of  itself,  something  necessary,  some 
knowledge  gained  otherwise  than  in  the  way  of  information  or 
as  matter  of  fact,— a  demand  which  is  not  satisfied.  This  is 
the  point  of  positivism.  The  view  which  I  am  trying  to  give 
against  it  is  that  all  our  knowledge,  one  part  as  well  as  another, 
IS  the  result  of  thought  and  experience  in  conjunction  :  we  are 
every  moment,  by  means  of  the  sensive  and  motive  nerves  of 
our  body,  hitting,  knocking  ourselves  against,  one  thing  after 
another  in  nature:  but  all  this  (and  this  is  all  that  our 
experience  of  itself  is)  would  be  fruitless,  unless  we  were 
thinking  all  the  while.  As  to  any  particular  part  of  knowledge, 
there  may  be  much  thought  and  little  communication  or  ex- 
perience: or  there  may  be  much  of  this  latter  and  little  thought: 
this  is  all  the  difference  between  supposedly  necessary  and 
contingential  truths :  there  must  be  thought  and  experience  in 
both.  Only,  if  supposedly  necessary  truths  are  contingential, 
supposedly  contingential  ones  are  necessary. 

The  demonstrating  that  two  straight  lines  not  inclosing  a 
space  is  a  truth  of  experience,  seems  to  me  something  the  same 
as  if  we  were  to  try  to  prove,  that  with  one  scene  before  us,  and 
without  even  stirring  from  our  place,  we  might,  supposing  life 
long   enough,  think   out  the  problem  of  the  universe.     It  is 
exceedingly  probable   that  within   that  scene  there  are  data 
enough  for  it,  if  only  our  minds  were  up  to  the  work.     But 
the   reason  for  our  using  or  needing  the  word  experience  in 
philosophy  is,  because  we  come  to  the  knowledge  of  some  things 
in  the  way  of  matter  of  fact  or  information,  of  some  things  by 
thinking  them  out — information  useless  without  some  thought, 
thinking  useless  without  some  experience,— but  the  making  the 
word  experience  cover  all  limitation  of  our  otherwise  free,  but 
useless  imagination,  either  destroys  all  point  of  the  word,  or 
else  involves  error.    I  accept  the  above  demonstration,  as  against 
the  saying  that  an  intuitive  axiom,  such  as  that  relating  to 
two  straight  lines,  belongs  to  the  mind  and  not  to  the  universe: 
but  reject  it  so  far  as  it  implies  that  it  does  not  belong  to  the 
mind  as  well  as  to  the  universe. 


M. 


20 


306  POSITIVISM— RATIONARY   PHILOSOPHY.  [ctfAP. 

There  is  a  double  question  which  we  have  always  to  put  to 
ourselves  about  any  subject  we  are  considering,  (1)    What  is 
the  actual,  tangible,  fact?  (2)  What  is  its  reason,  principle  or 
meanincr  ?     That  is,  we  ought  to  be  (and  in  fact  naturally  we 
always  "are)  using  our  imagination  at  the  same  time  that  we 
keep  ourselves  in  presence  of  nature.     There  is  not  generally 
much  use  in  the  common  psychological  analysis  of  the  different 
mental  operations,  for  this  reason,  that  it    is   impossible   to 
follow  the  manner  in  which  almost  all  these  are  constantly 
united  in  each  act  of  thought  or  intelligence,  and  m  which 
the  apparently  simplest  and  earliest  of  such  acts  involve  the 
most  complicated.     A  truer  psychology  of  the  individual  may 
sometimes  be  found  in  books  which  speak  of  the  progress  of 
knowledge   in   the   race   than   in   the   ordinary   psychological 
analysis:   for  Plato's  notion  is  more  applicable  here  than  in 
relation  to  the  moral  constitution  of  his  Republic :   the  fact 
or   process   of  mental   growth  is  seen   clearer  and  better  m 
the  larger  unity.     We   might   almost  say  that   every  act  of 
thought  involves   the  whole  number  of  what  are  called  the 
different  mental  operations  or  faculties.     One  of  the  facts  more 
especially  which  it  is  scarcely  possible  for  psychologists  to  bring 
out  as  it  exists,  is  the  perpetual  activity  of  imagination,  which 
is  what  gives  the  real  value  to  perception  and  educes  from  it 

generalization. 

I   have   said   that   the   process    of  knowledge   is   twofold, 
though  knowledge  itself  does  not  consist  of  two  parts  or  two 
elements,  or  two  constituents,  but  is  one,  only  something  which 
we  may  look  at  in  two  ways.     Now  of  the  two  processes  of 
gaining  knowledge  we  may  look  at  either  as  the  principal,  and 
at  the  other  as  subsidiary.     Naturally,  whatever  we   look   at 
as  the  principal,  we  shall  conceive  as  beginning  and  ending 
knowledge,  while  we  look  at  the  other  as  coming  in  by  the  way 
to  shorten  or  facilitate  this.     If  we  define  knowledge  as  ac- 
quaintance or  presence  with  nature  or  reality,  we  should  consider 
that  presence  with  nature,  which  we  commonly  call  sensation, 
as  the  beginning  of  knowledge,  and  we  should  define  complete 
knowledge  to  be  a  quasi-seeing,  an  'anschauung,'  'betouchment,' 
experience  of,  presence  at,  acquaintance  with,  all  the  universal  and 


II.] 


ERROR  OF  RELATIVISM. 


307 


continuous  reality  of  nature,  in  the  same  manner  as  now  we  are 
brought  into  contact  with  various  special  parts  of  it  by  our 
senses  and  particular  experience.     And  between  this  beginning 
and  this  end  of  knowledge  there  goes,  as  a  sort  of  artifice,  all  the 
thmkmg  and  judging  process.     To  help  ourselves  we  make  a 
set  of  formulas  or  expressions  about  things,  getting  them  more 
and  more  comprehensive,  which  we  should  not  need,  if  our 
powers  of  simple,  unjudging  contemplation  or  intuition  were 
more  complete.     Thought  comparing,  thought  judging  of  re- 
lations, is  m  this  view  a  sort  of  algebra  or  currency  representing 
intuition,  and  convertible  on  demand  into  it,  having  no  value 
m  Itself,  and  our  attributing  to  it  value  in  itself  is  as  if  a 

mathematician  should  value  mere  formulas,  as  a  miser  does  his 
money. 

It  is  upon  this  view  that,  in  a  good  deal  of  philosophy,  what 
18  called  the  understanding,  or  the  fa<!ulty  of  relations,  is  con- 
sidered to  stand  between  two  intuitions  or  intuitive  faculties, 
the  lower  called,  we  will  say,  sensation,  the  higher  called,  we 
will  say,  Reason.     In  reality  however,  exactly  as  on  this  view  of 
knowledge  we  may  put  the  formulizing  understanding  between 
two  mtuitions,  so  on  the  other  view  we  may  put  the  pictorial 
imagination  between  two  (what  I  may  call)  Reasons.    In  reality 
sensation  as  distinguished  from  dreaming,  is  the  having  the 
thought,  the  making  mentally  to  ourselves  the  assertion,  Such 
and  such  a  thing  is.     If  we  give  the  name  'intuitive'  to  those 
judgments  which  are  not  the  result  of  previous  thought  there 
will  be  two  kinds  of  such  judgments,  the  lower  of  sensation, 
and  the  higher  corresponding  (on  this  view  of  knowledge)  to 
the  higher  mtuitions  of  the  reason  :  and  then  the  pictorial 
imagination,  contemplation,  preparatory  to,  or  tentative  at  true 
judgment,  plays  exactly  the  same  part  between  these  two  kinds 
of  judgment,  as  the  formulizing  understanding,  judgment  pre- 
paratory to  and  tentative  at,  true  contemplation,  does  between 
the  two  kinds  of  contemplation  or  proper  intuition.     So  far  as 
we  mean  by  knowledge  right  thought,  the  three  stages  of  mental 
state  and  operation  may  be  distinguished  as  sensation  (or  the 
ower  kind  of  right  thought),  imagination.  Reason  (or  the  higher 
kind  of  right  thought).     So  far  as  we  mean  by  it  acquaintance 

20—2 


I    '1 


H 


308  POSITIVISM— RATIONARY   PHILOSOPHY.  [CHAP. 

with  things,  the  same  three  stages  are  sensation  or  acquaintance 
with  lower  things,  understanding  or  the  faculty  of  judgment, 
Reason  or  acquaintance  with  higher  things.  Our  mind  proceeds 
in  the  double  way,  and  in  reality,  imagination  is  what  we  may 
call  the  atmosphere  of  judgment,  or  that  out  of  which  judgment 
crystallizes,  while  exactly  in  the  same  way  judgments  are  the 
centres  of  expansive  inward  sight  or  contemplation. 

It  seems  to  me  that  neither  of  these  two  things  is  sufficiently 
considered  by  psychologists.     It  is  because  we  are  always  more 
or  less  thinking  how  things  might  he,  that  the  way  in  which 
they  are  strikes  us,  or  that  we  notice  it :  thus  it  is  previous  or 
accompanying  thought  that  converts  mere  presence  into  acquaint- 
ance.    In  the  same  way  when  we  make  a  judgment,  it  is  not 
something  lifeless  in  the  mind,  a  convenient  binding  up  of  past 
thought,  to  be  done  with :  it  not  only  is,  but  we  mean  it  for, 
the  centre  of  an  atmosphere  of  imagination  proceedmg  from  it : 
our  giving  a  thing  a  name,  or  saying  it  belongs  to  a  kmd, 
means   not  only  that  it  has  a  certain  number  of  properties 
which  we  call  its  definition,  but  is  in  reality  a  foretelhng  that  it 
has    endless   properties    besides,   which   then   we   proceed   to 
imagine  or  think  about. 

It  will    be   said   that   all   this   represents   an   exceptional 
active-mindedness :  that  the  notion  of  one  thing  after  another 
impressing  us,  being  remembered,  being  abstracted,  &c.  suffici- 
ently represents  the  normal  activity  of  people's  minds.     As  to 
this,  I  believe,  that  it  is  impossible  to  exaggerate  the  amount 
of  menUl  activity  which  there  is  in  children  or  wherever  the 
mind  really  works,  which  in  adults  it  sometimes  scarcely  seems 
to  do.     Since  microscopes,  we  have  lost  all  idea  of  arriving  at 
ultimate  units  of  space,  and  within  the  magnitude  of  a  grain  of 
sand  we  can  detect  any  amount  of  variety  and  movement.     It 
can  scarcely  be  doubted  that  time  is  as  full  of  action,  as  space 
of  fact  and  matter,  though  our  will  can  impress  itself  only  very 
coarsely  on  either,  and  we  have  no  microscopes  for  time,  as  we 
have  for  space  and  matter.     For  the  earlier  mind  at  least,  no 
amount  of  activity  seems  to  me  too  great  to  suppose. 

Imagination  is  continually  blamed  as  obtrusive  and  deceitful 
by   those    upon   whom   the   view   of   knowledge   which   most 


II.] 


ERROR  OF   RELATIVISM. 


309 


impresses  itself  is  that  it  is  right  thought  or  judgment,  just  as 
on  the  other  hand  the  formulizing  understanding  is  blamed  as 
cold,  sterile  and  hollow  by  those  to  whom  knowledge  seems 
most  really  to  be  acquaintance  with  things.  It  may  appear 
from  the  above  how  little  reason  there  is  for  blame  in  either 
case. 

At  the  time  when  Bacon  wrote  there  was  no  doubt  much 
reason  for  calling  men  from  books  to  nature :  but  without 
books  (so  far  as  they  represent  thought),  men  might  have 
known  as  fact  any  corner  of  the  world  and  a  host  of  the  pro- 
cesses of  nature,  and  yet  have  had  nothing  like  what  we  call 
scientific  knowledge.  Bacon,  like  a  good  lawyer,  said,  '  Have 
evidence  for  what  you  say:  and  learn  how  to  examine  evidence: 
see  what  each  sort  of  evidence  goes  to  prove:'  accordingly  he 
tried  to  catalogue  the  sorts.  But  an  inquiry  into  nature  is  not 
simply  a  question  of  evidence.  The  wrong,  i.e.  insufficient, 
assumption  all  along  is,  that  curiosity,  i.e.  the  thinking  impulse, 
is  a  desire  of  the  knowledge  of  fact  as  fact.  Curiosity  is  a 
desire  to  know  the  reasons  of  things,  and  a  desire  to  know 
what  is  the  truth  of  fact  when  there  is  a  doubt  what  is.  The 
infantile  question  is  'Why?'  and  not  'What?'  till  imagination 
has  suggested,  *Is  it  this  or  that?'  All  experiment  implies 
question,  all  valuable  observation  implies  previous  supposition. 

The  being  satisfied  with  knowledge  of  fact  (i.e.  with  frag- 
mentary experience)  without  effort  to  fill  it  up  and  put  it 
together,  or  (which  seems  to  me  the  same  thing)  without  the 
strong  feeling  and  belief  that  we  are  learning,  not  separate 
things  in  the  way  in  which  we  might  be  informed  of  one 
accident  after  another,  but  different  portions  of  one  thing 
which,  as  such,  have  a  relation  together  or  a  meaning, — 
this  is  in  substance  what  I  call  positivism :  and  it  seems  to 
me  to  represent  rather  the  unscientific  and  unimproving  view 
of  knowledge  than  the  improving  one. 

The  view  that  fact  is  the  end  of  our  consideration;  that 
knowledge  is  a  sort  of  accident  afterwards  arising  in  relation 
to  a  part  of  fact :  this  seems  to  me  the  root  of  positivism,  and^ 
as  1  have  said  before,  it  is  to  me  unutterably  dreary. 

^  Expl.  16. 


310 


POSITIVISM — RATIONARY    PHILOSOPHY. 


[chap. 


The  view  which  I  wish  to  give  is  this.  Thought,  or  right 
thought,  i.e.  knowledge,  is  one  thing :  there  is  not  one  kind  of 
knowledore  for  one  set  of  creatures,  and  another  for  another: 
what  variety  there. is  in  knowledge  is  attributable  to  the  various 
qualities  of  the  known,  not  to  the  various  faculties  of  the 
knowing:  there  is  one  rightness  of  thought,  and  to  consider 
this  rightness  as  relative  to  the  nature  of  the  thinker  destroys 
all  notion  of  truth.  Looking  at  the  same  thing  from  the  other 
side :  fact  or  reality  is  one  thing :  what  is  fact  for  one  set  of 
beings  is  fact  for  another  set :  if  only  they  can  perceive  it,  and 
so  far  as  they  perceive  it  at  all,  they  perceive  it  as  what  it  is. 
That  is,  we  may  on  the  one  hand  suppose  the  variety  of 
knowledge  to  arise  from  the  variety  of  objective  fact:  in  which 
case,  though  of  course  we  may  admit  besides  any  variety  we 
please  of  faculties  of  perception,  yet  we  must  consider  the 
knowing  power  at  bottom  to  be  one,  and  these  various  manners 
of  perception  are  simply  the  same  kind  of  thing  as  if  we  looked 
at  an  object  through  differently  coloured  glasses:  there  are 
difiTerent  manners  of  seeing  the  thing,  but  one  reality  and  one 
truth.  There  is  not  one  manner  of  knowledge,  one  fact,  for  the 
man  who  looks  through  the  red  glass,  and  another  for  the  man 
who  looks  through  the  blue :  knowledge  in  this  sense  is  always 
absolute,  never  relative :  knowledge,  if  we  look  from  the  side  of 
fact,  is  the  coordination  of  intelligences,  so  far  as  we  suppose 
intelligences  various,  the  common  part  or  point  of  them  all. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  suppose  the  variety  of  knowledge 
to  arise  from  the  various  manners  of  our  thinking :  if  we  start 
from  a  sort  of  Berkleian  supposition,  and  consider  that  God 
inspires  one  set  of  thoughts  in  one  set  of  beings,  another  in 
another  set  of  beings :  then  (even  if  we  suppose  the  thought 
must  be  about  something,  that  there  must  be  an  object  or  a 
logical  subject  for  it)  we  must  bear  in  mind  that  rightness 
of  thought,  or  truth,  does  not  depend  at  all  upon  the  thought 
following  any  varieties  of  that  subject  or  object,  but  (by  the 
supposition)  upon  the  fact  that  the  thought  is  inspired  by  God. 
If  we  suppose  then  any  object  (in  this  sense)  or  logical  subject, 
— and  truth,  or  rightness  of  thought,  is  in  the  manner  in  which 
we  think  about  this — it  is  only  a  nucleus,  a  lay  figure  to  be 


11.] 


ERROR   OF  RELATIVISM. 


311 


'draped  and  dressed,  and  the  rightness  of  this  draping  and 
dressing  is  dependent,  not  upon  anything  in  the  nucleus,  but 
upon  the  original  inspiration.  The  nucleus  is  not  something 
unknown,  but  it  is  something  to  which  the  notion  of  know- 
ledge is  not  applicable.  To  take  the  image  which  I  used  before : 
we  may  consider  truth  or  rightness  of  thought  to  consist  in 
our  right  appreciation  of  the  colour  of  the  glass  through  which 
we  look  at  an  object:  then  the  object  is  something  to  be  looked 
at,  and  nothing  more :  it  exists  for  us  only  to  test  the  glass :  we 
must  not  suppose  variety  in  it :  truth  or  knowledge  has  nothing 
to  do  with  it :  truth  is  in  the  redness  or  blueness  to  which,  in 
our  manner  of  thinking,  we  must  suppose  a  support  or  ground- 
work. Here  the  knowledge  is  absolute,  the  relativeness  is  only 
in  the  form  of  language :  we  put  our  absolute  knowledge  into 
a  relative  form  of  expression,  because  the  ordinary  manner  of 
our  thought  in  life,  upon  which  language  is  framed,  is  not  this, 
but  the  supposition  given  before :  except  for  this,  there  would 
be  no  reason  for  the  supposition  of  a  logical  subject  at  all. 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  error  arises  from  the  supposition  of 
the  independent  variation,  so  to  speak,  of  manners  of  thinking 
on  the  one  side,  and  qualities  of  the  object  on  the  other :  on  this 
supposition  there  is  really  no  result.  We  may  either  suppose 
truth  to  be  conformity  to  fact,  or  we  may  suppose  truth  to  be 
rightness  of  thought  (thinking  according  to  the  laws  of  intelli- 
gence, if  we  like  to  take  that  as  our  test  of  rightness)  about 
what  is  the  logical  subject  of  thought.  What  we  must  not 
suppose  is,  that  truth  is  applying  one  sort  of  thought  (that 
according  to  the  laws  of  our  intelligence)  to  another  sort 
of  thought  (that  conformable  to,  because  suggested  by,  fact). 

The  supposition  of  knowledge  as  right  thought  is  the 
supposition  of  philosophy  and  real  consciousness,  for,  as  I  have 
said,  thought  is  all  that  we  can  be  absolutely  certain  of  But 
thought  presents,  or  suggests,  to  us,/ac^:  and  the  supposition 
of  knowledge  as  conformity  with  fact  is  what  we  may  call  the 
supposition  which  we  live  by.  It  is  the  supposition  of  language, 
and  of  physical  and  all  ordinary  science.  Right  positivism  (as 
a  philosophical  method)  is  the  holding  to  this  supposition,  in 
speaking  of  the  nature  of  knowledge,  against  the  unphilosophical 


312  POSITIVISM — RATION ARY   PHILOSOPHY.        [CHAP.  II. 

mixing  of  it  with  the  other,  which  I  have  called  '  relativism.' 
Wrong  positivism  is  in  my  view,  the  considering  that  in  the 
progress  of  knowledge  we  are  only,  or  ought  to  be  only, 
following  fact,  and  are  not,  or  ought  not  to  be,  actively  specu- 
lating, imagining,  anticipating,  meeting  the  fragmentariness  of 
experience  by  belief  in  the  reason  of  things  and  in  the 
connectedness  of  all. 


^1 


t 


CHAPTER  III. 

POSITIVISM   AS    OPPOSED   TO    IDEALISM    IN   REGARD   TO 
ACTION.       ERROR  OF   REGULATIVISM. 


I  HAVE  now  to  speak  of  positivism  in  a  different  view. 
We  are  active  beings,  and  imagination,  in  the  wide  sense  in 
which  I  have  used  the  term,  is  the  director  of  all  our  actions. 
That  is,  action  is  the  bringing  something  into  being  which  was 
not,  and  rational  action  is  the  doing  this  with  pre-imagination 
of  the  result  in  the  mind  of  the  agent. 

Positivism  in  respect  of  thought,  or  as  a  philosophical 
method,  is  contrasted  with  what  I  called  rationary  philosophy : 
positivism  in  view  of  action  is  contrasted  with  idealism. 

In  each  case,  positivism  stands  against  imagination,  as  I 
have  used  the  word,  but  imagination,  as  applied  to  different 
purposes. 

We  have  seen  that  the  positivism  of  which  we  have  spoken, 
though  wrongly  opposed  to  imagination  is  right  as  against 
relativism.  In  like  manner  there  is  something,  not  fitly 
perhaps  to  be  called  positivism,  which  is  right  against  the 
application  of  relativism  to  the  field  of  action,  which  application 
I  will  call '  regulativism.' 

Positivism  says,  Man  practically  always  has  been  imagining 
and  idealizing,  and  no  good  has  come  of  it.  He  begins  with 
that,  and  only  late  and  slowly  comes  to  attention  to  fact,  which 
is  the  really  important  thing.  But,  thus  late,  he  does  learn, 
doubly :  he  learns  that  this  attention  to  fact  is  the  important 
thing,  and  that  he  had  better  quite  give  up  his  imagining  and 
idealizing :  this  first :  and  then  his  learning  this,  as  he  does, 


I 


1 


314  POSITIVISM   AS   OPPOSED  TO  IDEALISM.  [OHAP. 

late  in  his  history  is  itself  a  matter  of  importance,  in  this  way : 
being  no  longer  able  to  make  use  of  imagination  and  idealism 
as  guides  to  action,  he  has  a  great  fact  before  him,  his  own 
past  history :  and  this  may  come  in  their  place  as  a  guide  to 
action.  Let  him  do  as  he  is  doing,  and  will  do,  and  must  do : 
let  him  follow  the  logic  of  facts,  work  out  his  destiny,  actively 
and  consciously  grow  his  growth  and  develope  his  develop- 
ment, and  this  is  his  morality.  Let  him  study  what,  according 
to  his  nature  as  shown  in  his  history,  he  does  think  and  feel, 
and  then  let  him  consider,  all  the  time  rejecting  imagination 
and  idealism,  that  this  is  how  he  ought  to  think  and  feel : 
(/  am  not  responsible  for  the  logic  or  consistency) :  in  this 
way  he  will  make  of  morality  a  positive  or  inductive  science. 

Regulativism  says,  Positivism  and  fact  cannot  guide  action ; 
we  must  for  that,  have  something  of  intuitivism  {i.e.  what 
I  have  called  imagination  and  idealism).  But  we  must  be 
careful  that  we  keep  in  mind  that  this  is  only  to  guide  our 
action.  We  must  not  suppose  that  we  have  by  it  any  inward 
sight  of  higher  fact.  Our  knowledge  being  relative  to  our 
particular  faculties  and  senses,  and  only  true  in  this  relation, 
we  are  in  a  region  of  contradictions,  as  soon  as  we  get  out 
of  what. is  adapted  to  these.  We  feel  certain  fragmentary  or 
isolated  principles  directing  our  action,  but  have  no  right  to 
conclude  from  these  to  any  supposed  fact. 

It  is  here  that  something  like  positivism,  as  I  have  just 
now  said,  might  step  in  and  say,  An  ideal  or  anything  intuitively 
seen,  if  it  is  to  direct  action,  must  represent  some  fact  of  that 
higher  order  of  facts  which  can  direct  action :  e.g.  .if  we  act 
in  view  oi  o,  summnni  bonum,  we  believe  that  that  which  we  act 
for  is  good,  in  the  same  way  in  which  we  believe  the  physical 
universe  exists.  I  will  examine  in  a  moment  the  validity  of 
this :  I  just  mention  it  to  show  the  relation  to  each  other  of 
regulativism  and.  not  precisely  positivism,  but  what  we  may 
call  the  generalized  matter-of-fact  feeling. 

What  has  made  people  conceive  of  morality,  or  has  been 
the  cause  of  such  a  thing  entering  into  their  heads,  is  the  belief 
(felt,  though  perhaps  indistinctly)  in  the  right  and  good,  i.e, 
the  belief  that  there  is  something,  whatever  it  is,:which^  as 


XII.] 


ERROR  OF  REGULATIVISM. 


315' 


men,  they  should  do,  and  the  belief  (another  form  of  the 
same)  that  there  is  a  highest  good  for  man.  This,  as  a  fact,  has 
been  the  origin  of  moral  thought  and  philosophy.  But  then 
comes  the  question.  Is  this  belief  justified,  or  is  it  a  chimera  ? 
When  we  come  to  present  to  ourselves  the  belief  in  conscious- 
ness, or  to  philosophize  about  it,  we  must  have,  so  to  call  it^ 
a  belief  about  the  belief.  The  moral  intuitivist  has  this  belief 
about  the  general  human  belief  or  supposition  of  which  I  have 
spoken  (the  belief,  viz.  that  there  is  a  right  and  good) :  he 
believes  that  this  right  and  good  represent  fact,  or  in  some  way 
or  other  are  higher  fact  (this,  let  it  be  observed,  is  the  counter-, 
part  in  this  high  region  of  the  view  of  knowledge  in  general 
from  the  side  of  fact,  the  object,  or  the  universe,  of  which 
I  have  abundantly  spoken) ;  or,  if  we  dismiss  all  notion  of  fact, 
and  still,  in  this  high  region,  view  thought  from  the  side  of  the 
thinker,  he  believes  that  in  believing  in  a  right  and  good  he 
is  right :  that  his  belief  is  justified  :  that  it  is  what  he  ought  to 
believe  in.  If  we  bear  in  mind  the  principles  upon  which  we 
have  gone  all  along,  it  will  be  perceived  that  in  the  two  last 
accounts  I  have  given  of  the  belief,  from  the  side  of  fact  and 
from  the  side  of  the  thinker,  we  are  saying  the  same  thing 
from  a  different  point  of  view,  or  on  different  suppositions :  i.e, 
if  we  are  really  right  in  believing  in  a  right  and  good,  then,  so 
far  as  we  admit  the  notion  of  fact,  so  far  as  there  is  meaning 
in  the  term,  such  a  right  and  good  is  fact :  it  is  a  universe,  or 
part  of  a  universe,  though  not  the  universe  of  our  lower 
understanding.  The  converse  is  of  course  more  readily  seen, 
viz.,  that  if  there  is  such  fact,  we  are  right  in  believing  it. 

The  reason  why  that  which  I  am  here  exhibiting  is  not  so 
readily  seen  as  its  converse,  is  our  tendency  to  the  view  which 
I  have  called  relativism,  which,  as  applied  to  thought  of  the 
kind  which  I  am  now  speaking  of,  becomes  regulativism. 
Regulativism  is,  if  I  may  so  say,  belief  in  the  supposition  of  a 
right  and  good,  without  belief  in  any  fact  corresponding  to  thig 
supposition.  It  puts  the  mind  into  this  position:  simply  aa 
men,  we  believe  that  there  is  a  right  and  a  good,  i.e.  something, 
if  we  can  find  it,  which  we  should  do,  and  something,  if  we 
can    find    it,   which    is   our   highest  good:    we   are   right   in 


I  N 


316  POSITIVISM  AS  OPPOSED  TO  IDEALISM.  [CHAP. 

this  our  belief:  and  yet  there  is  no  such  thing,  at  least  we 
have  no  business  to  conclude  there  is.    The  language  in  which 
this  is  likely  to  be  couched  is,  these  principles  (of  the  right  and 
good  &c.)  are  proper  as  regulative  of  our  action  b"*  t^^y  «f^ 
not  proper  a.  d  Jctive  of  our  thought.     The  mind,  it  wil    be 
observed,  is  put  here  in  the   same  position  as  to  prMl 
thought  in  which  relativism  puts  it  a^  to  speculative:  je  do 
not  know  what  in  that  case  to  think,  or  in  this  to  do,  because 
there  is  supposed  a  right  way  of  thinking  on  our  part,  to  which 
there  is  nothing  in  foot  to  correspond :    when   we   look   at 
thought  from  the  two  sides,  of  the  object  and  the  subject,  of 
reality  and  of  truth,  the  lines  of  view  miss  meeting :  as  m  a 
tunnel  begun  from  the  opposite  ends  and  badly  engineered,  all 
comes  to  ;erplexity  and  mystification.    The  error  seems  to  me 
o  consist'in'the  supposition,  that  rightness  of  thought  can  be 
anything  other  than  conformity  of  thought  to  fact,  or.  taking 
the  other  course,  that  fact  can  mean  anything  else  than  what 
right   thought  suggests  to  us.     The  two  things  define  ea^h 
other-   and  philosophy  seems  to  me  to  consist  in  our  under- 
handing  that  we  cLot  otherwise  define  either  of  them,  only 

that  we  must  remember  that  thought  li««  ^''«^;-«'-  *;  "^^Tf 
any  fact  beyond  ourselves,  or.  in  other  words,  that  the  fac    of 

^  •  ftir^tincr     T  .see  no  way  of  meeting  this 

facts  to  us  IS  our  own  thinking.     1  see  no  w<j.y  a 

error  except  the  supposition  which  I  have  made  throughout 
Z  that  in  speaking  of  knowledge,  as  distinct  from  the  process 
of  it,  we  must  not  speak  of  thought  and  thmgs  concurrently 
but  of  either  of  them,  whichever  we  choose.     Relativism  and 
regulativism  both  start  from  the  point  of  view  of  thought, 
both  with  great  professions  of  keeping  to  it,  lay  down  proposi- 
tions which  are  true  according  to  it,  but  which  also,  according 
to  it,  are  not  at  all  paradoxical  or  surprising:  whereas  they  are 
give,i  as  paradoxical  and  surprising,  and  are  tofce«  also  probably 
L  such :  given,  because  the  philosopher  perhaps  does  not  think 
it  right,  perhaps  is  not  able,  to  keep  to  his  own  view  from  the 
side  of  thought  purely:   taken,  because  the  hearer  is  almos 
certain  to  s Urt  from  the  side  of  fact,  and  the  philosopher  is  not 
above  taking  pleasure  in  mystifying  him. 

It  is  impJrUnt  to  distinguish  relativism  and  regulativism 


III.] 


ERROR   OF   REGULATIVISM. 


317 


from  two  things  which  have  a  tendency  to  confuse  themselves 
with  them  :  one,  a  feeling  of  the  partialness  of  our  knowledge : 
the  other,  the  notion  of  the  proper  fact  being  not  what  our 
thought  immediately  suggests. 

If,  when  it  is  said  that  we  have  in  our  nature  principles, 
which  ought  to  regulate  our  action,  but  which  give   us  no 
information  as  to  fact,  what  is  in  substance  meant  is,  that  any 
notion  which  we  have  of  the  right,  or  the  desirable,  is  something 
which,  in  the  exhibition,  looks  very  small  indeed,  while  yet,  in 
application  to  action,  it  may  be  very  fruitful,— I  quite  agree, 
only  I  call  this  simply  partialness  of  knowledge,  not  anything 
to  which  there  is  any  reason  to  give  such  a  name  as  'regulative.' 
The  point  of  the  difference  is  this :  the  supposition  of  regula- 
tiveness  is  meant  to  exclude  any  utility  in  our  thinking  further 
about  them,  and  trying  in  any  way  to  extend  our  knowledge. 
It  means,  not  only  that  they  are  difficult  to  deal  with  and  seem 
to  tell  us  little,  but  that  we  may  know  beforehand  that  no 
speculation  will  be  of  any  use  about  them.     As  to  whether  it 
will  be  so  or  not,  I  say  nothing:  only  that  there  is  nothing 
in  their  nature  to  make  us  know  beforehand  that  it  will  not 

be  so. 

Again,  if,  when  it  is  said  that  any  intuitive  feelings  of  our 
nature  may  be  all  very  well  for  their  purpose  and  yet  give  us 
no  information,  what  we  mean  is,  that  it  is  exceedingly  hard  to 
apply  the  notions  of  information,  and  fact,  in  this  region  of 
thought,  here  too  I  quite  agree.     What  sort  of  fact,  it  may  be 
asked,  can  correspond  to  the  notion  of  there  being  a  highest 
good  for  man?     Is  not  man's  having  the  idea  that  there  is, 
almost  the  only  possible  fact  that  we  can  conceive  about  the 
case  ?     I  do  not  hold  this  myself :  I  think  if  we  say  man  is 
right  in  having  such  an  idea,  or  if  we  say  that  it  is  an  idea 
which  he  is  right  in  acting  on,  we  must  mean  that  there  is  a 
state  or  connexion  of  things,  analogous  to  the  universe  of  our 
lower  understanding,  in  which  state  or  connexion  of  things  our 
acting  in  a  particular  way  is  linked  with  some  result  in  fact, 
which  may  properly  be  described  as  the  highest  good  for  us. 
But  let  us  examine  the  matter  more  closely. 

One  man  says,  'I  have  no  promptings  to  act  in  the  way 


^ 


318  POSITIVISM   AS   OPPOSED  TO   IDEALISM.  [CHAP. 

which  is  commonly  described  as  moral,  and  I  am  sure  that 
-there  is  nothing  of  the  kind  natural,  though  there  is  often,  as 
the   result   of  education,  or  in   a   manner  accidental.     I  see 
indeed  intellectually  a  reason  why  I  should  act  towards  some 
happiness,  for  otherwise  my  action  would  be  wasted :  it  would 
be  like  ploughing  the  ground  for  the  pleasure  of  ploughing, 
with  no  intention  to  sow  when  the  ploughing  was  done :  but 
the  only  happiness  which  I  can  myself  enjoy  is  that  which, 
either  mediately  or   immediately,  is   my  own.     I   may  have 
indeed  an  intellectual  disposition  to  form  ideals,  and  think  that 
there   is   one   sort   of  thing  which   I  should  do  rather   than 
another:  but  this  is  an  aberration  or  delusion,  which  positivism, 
or  that  proper  value  for  matter  of  fact,  which  individuals  and 
human  nature  alike  learn  as  they  get  older,  teaches  me  should 
be  got  rid  of.     My  action  is  therefore  entirely  unprompted  and 
undirected  by  moral  ideals :  I  act  according  to  fact.'    This  seems 
to  me  to  be  the  groundwork  of  moral  positivism,  from  which 
our  acting  upon  any  moral  promptings  or  directions,  or  m  view 
of  any  moral  ideals,  must  stand  distinguished. 

Another  man  says,  '  I  feel  that  I  have  moral  promptmgs 
such  as  the  first  speaker  disclaims.  But  what  then  ?  If  it  is 
said  to  me.  Supposing  you  have  such  promptings,  what  reason 
is  there  you  should  follow  them  ?  what  shall  I  say  V 
'  I  understand  Butler's  answer  to  this  to  be,  *  They  are 
evidently  part  of  your  nature,  and  if  they  do  not  direct  your 
action  they  subserve  no  purpose  in  it:  which  cannot  be 
supposed.'  This,  though  doubtless  in  a  way  true,  yet  as 
an  answer,  rather  resembles  what  disappointed  Socrates  in 
Anaxagoras:  it  is  like  giving  as  a  reason  for  our  walking 
anywhere  that  we  have  got  legs. 

The  real  value  of  this  reason  I  understand  to  be  this: 
these  promptings  in  your  nature  bear  witness  to  you  of  the 
fact  that  there  is  a  reason  why  you  should  act  in  a  particular 
way  and  in  the  way  which  they  direct :  if  there  is  such  a 
reason,  you  are  really  in  a  wider  universe  of  fact  than  your 
simply  intellectual  faculties  tell  you  of:  for  the  universe  of 
fact  which  these  are  concerned  with  can  contain  no  such 
reason     No  amount  of  acquaintance  with  the  material  globe 


III.] 


ERROR   OF   REGULATIVISM. 


319 


and  heavens  and  the  agencies  at  work  in  them,  can  possibly 
suggest  any  reason  why  you  should  act  in  this  or  that  manner 
as  regards  the  happiness  of  your  fellow  men.     So  far  then  as 
there  exists  such  reason,  there  must  exist  also  (in  whatever  way) 
fact  of  a  different  kind  from  this  material  fact,  and  with  which 
this  reason  is  associated,  or  from  which  it  is  derived.     Your 
moral  promptings  therefore,  so  far  as  you  admit  them,  as  what 
should  direct  your   action,  are   like   a   new  sense  (or   sensive 
power)  to  you  in  this  way,  that  by  means  of  them  you  have 
a  notion  of  the  existence  of  fact,  which  by  your  ordinary  senses 
you  could  have  no  notion  of.     This   fact   then,  being  fact,  is 
something  which,  once  made  known  to  you,  your  speculative 
and  intellectual  powers  also  may  deal  with :  possibly  they  may 
not  make  much  of  it,  but  if  it  i^fact,  it  is  true  for  them  as  well 
as  for  your  moral  nature,  and  they  are  applicable  to  it. 

According  to  the  ordinary  division  of  provinces  of  thought, 
I  suppose  that,  if  this  higher  fact  is  considered  only  in  a  very 
general  light  and  in  a  practical  view,  we  are  in  the  province 
of  moral  philosophy.  If  the  fact  is  looked  at  more  closely  and 
definitely,  and  with  the  earnestness  of  view  which  belongs 
to  the  attribution  of  great  practical  importance  to  it,  it  is 
called  natural  religion.  If  we  deal  with  the  supposed  fact 
in  a  purely  speculative  way,  we  call  the  manner  of  proceeding 
the  higher  philosophy,  or  pure  philosophy. 

The  supposition  of  or  belief  in,  this  which  I  call  *  higher 
fact'  brings  all  these  three  ways  of  proceeding  into  relation 
with  each  other.  On  the  other  hand,  the  practical  application 
of  what  I  have  called  regulativism,  or  the  saying  that  we  must 
not  consider  moral  promptings  to  introduce  us  to  any  higher 
fact,  which  we  can  then  speculatively  converse  with,  cuts  off 
the  connexion  between  these  three  provinces  of  thought.  Its 
language  is,  that  we  must  not  apply  moral  considerations  to 
religion,  nor  judge  of  it  by  them :  that  we  must  not  consider 
that  morality  proves  religion,  or  anything  like  it:  that  the 
higher  speculations  on  the  nature  of  truth  and  existence  have 
nothing  to  do  with  religion  or  morality,  nor  any  bearing  on  them\ 


1  The  reference  is  no  doubt  to  Dean  Hansel's  Bampton  Lectures,  which  the 
Author  has  criticised  in  a  separate  essay. 


320  POSITIVISM   AS  OPPOSED  TO  IDEAUSM.  [CHAP. 

Eegulativism  is  not  a  man's  simply  confining  his  thoughts 
to  one  only  of  these  provinces :  but  is  the  denial  of  the 
legitimacy  of  expansion  and  comparison  of  thought  (what 
I  should  call  -imagination')  on  the  subjects  which  thought 
in  these  provinces  deals  with. 

While    then,  positivism    denies   the    existence,   even    for 
regulative  purposes,  of  anything  belonging  to  this  high  region  ; 
while  in  reference  to  the  process  of  knowledge,  it   attaches 
exclusive  importance  to  our  having  had  experience  of  whatever 
the  thing  may  be.  and  takes  little  or  no  account  of  the  process 
always   going  on  of   supposition,  imagination,  expansion   of 
thought    mental    comparison;    regulativism,  startmg  from  a 
different    point,  comes    to    the    same    conclusion    as    to  the 
fragmentary  or  accidental  character  of  our  knowledge  m  regard 
to  the  higher  region  of  which  we  have  spoken.     PoBitiv.sm. 
n  the  lo'wer  re^on,  says.  Here  is  this,  that,  and  the  other 
yact.-fragn.ents:  you   may  unite  them  with  each  other    or 
each  with  others,  but  still  you  will  get  nothmg  more  than 
fragments :    the   supposition   of  reasons  for  them,  principles 
of  them,  fusing  them  out  of  fax^t  into  a  whole  of  thought,  is 
what    must   never   be    admitted:    knowledge    ,s    experience, 
converse  with  fact,  nor  must  we  ever  consider  it  other.     In 
like  manner  regulativism,  in  the   higher  reg^n  says.  Here 
is  this,  that,  and  the  other  idea :  we  may  describe  them  in  one 
and  another  way.  but  idea^  they  must  remam :  we  must  not 
suppose  them  to  have  any  reference,  which  we  can  the  least 
follow,  to  any  higher  state  of  facts :  even  supposmg  we  should 
allow  such  higher  fact,  and  conceivably  come,  through  particular 
occurrences,  to  the  knowledge  of  one  and  another  pomt  of  it 
still  we  must  not  exercise  our  mind  about  the  ideas  or  the 
points  of  fact,  we  must  not  compare,  generalize   conclude:  we 
must  leave  all  in  fragments,  accept  the  several  things,  regulate 
action  by  them  severally,  and  go  no  further.  .    ^    - 

It  will  be  seen  thus  that  regulativism  is.  m  fact,  the 
positivism  of  the  higher  regions  of  thought.  Against  them 
both  stands  the  tendency  to  believe,  in  the  one  case,  that  fact 
means  thought,  in  the  other,  that  right  thought  means  fact, 
that  we  must  not  say  that  anything  is  to  be  looked  at  m  one  of 
these  views  only. 


III.] 


ERROR   OF   REGULATIVISM. 


321 


What  I  said  as  to  the  difference  between  regulativism  and 
partialness  will  be  borne  in  mind.  Regulativism  prohibits  all 
attempt  to  enlarge  our  knowledge  in  this  higher  region : 
the  recognition  of  partialness  encourages  it. 

Leaving  regulativism,  I  will  now  speak  a  little  about 
positivism  in  its  relation  to  idealism. 

Action  depends  upon  what  we  have,  for  the  means  of  it,  but 
upon  what  we  ivant,  for  the  purpose  of  it. 

Besides  knowing  the  circumstances  in  which  we  are  placed, 
which,  of  itself,  suggests  no  action,  we  feel  desires,  which  do : 
and  so  far  as  we  consider  ourselves  to  have  a  constitution,  or  to 
be  members  of  an  orderly  system  of  things,  such  as  our  intel- 
ligence suggests  to  us  in  the  universe,  these  desires  indicate 
certain  facts,  viz.  wants. 

Besides  desires,  we  feel  promptings  urging  us  to  act  or  to 
abstain  from  action,  which  promptings  are  accompanied  by  a 
feeling  of  incumbency  or  imperativeness.  Just  as  desires  in- 
dicate the  fact  of  want,  so  this  feeling  may  be  said  to  indicate 
tlie  fact  of  a  kind  of  subjection  or  subordination. 

As  I  said  just  now  in  respect  of  relativism,  the  supposition 
of  rightness  in  thought  or  feeling,  is  the  same,  if  we  look  from 
another  side,  as  the  supposition  of  fact  corresponding. 

When  however  we  speak  of  wants  as  facts,  or  of  the  sub- 
ordination which  I  last  spoke  of  as  a  fact,  we  are  using  the 
word  fact  in  a  wider  sense  than  when  we  speak  of  the  facts 
which  our  ordinary  understanding  makes  us  aware  of  Speaking 
generally,  the  understanding  shows  us  what  is  or  what  we 
suppose  to  be :  when  we  conclude  to  fact  from  our  desires  or 
promptings,  it  is  not  something  which  is,  but  something  which 
is  not,  something  which  we  wish  to  be,  or  think  ought  to  be, 
that  is  first  in  view.  But  then  this  suggests  further  and 
higher  fact  as  giving  the  reason  why  we  thus  wish,  and  giving 
meaning  to  the  thought  that  a  thing  ought  to  be:  the  con- 
sideration of  this  higher  fact,  varying  from  simple  imagination 
of  it  to  belief  of  it,  is  what  I  have  called  idealism. 

Positivism,  as  against  idealism,  is  the  notion  that  all  this  is 
chimera.     No  doubt  (it  says),  we  do  think,  or  rather  dream,  in 

M.  21 


322  POSITIVISM   AS  OPPOSED  TO  IDEALISM.  [CHAP. 

this  manner:  but  the  older  and  wiser  we  become  the  less  we 

do  so.  , 

Consequently  positivism  treats  religion  first,  then  philosophy, 

moral  or  speculative,  or-as  when  thus  thought  of  it  is  usually 
called— metaphysics,  as  two  great  dreams  of  human  nature, 
the  first  in  the  main  prevailing  in  the  earlier,  the  second  in  the 
later  stages  of  civilization  :  undoubtedly,  it  says,  they  are  faxits 
themselves  of  human  history,  but  it  is  also  a  fact  of  that 
history  that  first  the  one  gives  place  to  the  other,  and  then 
they  both  cease :  and  it  is  proper  for  us,  following  fact,  to  do 
our  best  to  make  them  cease,  and  to  cease  from  them  ourselves 
This  last,  it  will  be  observed,  is  the  positivist  logic  which  I 
neither  understand  nor  recognize. 

Against  this  way  of  thinking,  it  appears  to  me  1st,  that  it 
is  not  historically  made  out  that  religion  and  metaphysical 
philosophy  do  cease :  2nd,  that  in  respect  of  any  partial  making 
of  it  out,  we  are  imperfect  judges  of  the  value  of  this  as  a 
fact  in  view  of  the  whole  course  of  human  history ;  3rd,  that 
relicdous  and  philosophical  thought  seem  to  belong  to  human 
nature  in  much  the  same  way  that  thought  applied  to  physical 
science  does ;  and  last,  that  whatever  the  historical  fact  may  be, 
there  remains  the  question,  which  I  have  so  many  times  alluded 
to  of  the  validity  of  the  positivist  logic,  or  of  the  supposition 
that  the  fact  alone  is  what  is  to  direct  our  action.     Supposing 
the  nations  of  Hindustan  or  Arabia  to  have  had  once  upon  a 
time  some  science,  and  now  to  have  no  further  mental  exercise 
than  such  as  is  furnished  them  by  an  unsatisfactory  religion, 
are  they  to  draw  conclusions  from  their  history,  on  the  same 
principles  on  which  we  are  told  to  draw  the  above  conclusions 

from  ours  ?  ,    , .,        i       r 

To  me  it  seems  to  be  a  fact  that  religion  and  philosophy,  it 
we  take  large  areas  and  periods,  still  continue  as  vigorous  as  ever, 
and  also  that  they  belong  to  the  mind  of  each  of  us,  and  there- 
fore must  continue  so :  nor  have  we  reason  to  conclude  against 
their  value,  from  their  not  being  progressive,  as  physical  science 
is.  The  progress  of  physical  science,  so  far  as  it  comes  into 
consideration  in  relation  to  religion  and  philosophy,  must  be 
divided  into  two  parts,  greater  justness  of  thought,  and  wider 


III.] 


ERROR  OF  REGULATIVISM. 


323 


experience.     The  latter  of  these,  though  it  is  probably  what 

positivists  chiefly  mean  by  progress,  is  a  matter  really  of  no 

merit  on  the  side  of  physical  science  as  against  anything  else 

but  of  indifference.     It  might  be  that  religion  and  philosophy 

were  susceptible  of  such  widening  of  experience,  or  it  might  not- 

nothing,  as  to  relative  value,  can  be  concluded  from  it.  *  In  our 

universe  of  space,  not  crowded,  but  apparently  infinite  of  which 

the  minutest  division  seems  capable  of  holding  any  amount  of 

various  existence,  of  course  our  limbs,  and  eyes,  and  mind  might 

go  on  travelling  and  expatiating,  that  is,  experience  might  so 

on  enlarging,  for  ever.     Religion  and  philosophy  might  possibly 

have  value  m  this  view :  but  if  they  have  not,  it  is  not  a  reason 

for  condemnation  of  them,  when  they  may  have  value  in  other 

points  of  view. 

Religion  and  philosophy,  however,  of  course  carry  their 
own  condemnation  in  the  positivist  view,  so  long  as  the  term 
idealism  is  applicable  to  them:  I  must  a  little  explain  its 
application. 

The  positivist  condemnation  of  religion  and  metaphysics  is 
really  a  condemnation  of  imagination  in  the  wide  sense  in  which 
I  have  used  the  term,  just  as  I,  by  the  fact  of  assigning  value  to 
it,  have  expressed  a  condemnation  of  positivism.     I  have  used 
the  term  '  imagination '  as  a  starting  word,  or  a  starting  point 
to  express  all  that  action  of  mind  which  is  not  perception  of 
what  we  ordinarily  call  fact,  or  what  is  not  e^perie,ice,  as  the 
word  IS  often  used.     It  is  a  matter  of  language  whether  we 
continue  to  call  what  we  have  hitherto  called  imagination  by 
that  name  (m  which  case  we  must  consider  that  imagination  is 
to  whatever  extent,  a  valuable  and  important  faculty  of  our 
mind),  or  whether  we  think  that  imaginations,  with  value  thus 
attributed  to  them,  should  no  longer  be  called  by  that  name 
but  should  rather  be  called  intuitions,  beliefs,  inward  sight  or 
vision,  or  by  whatever  other  similar  name. 

I  am  myself  in  the  habit  of  using  the  term  imagination 
with  full  recognition  of  the  above  value.  If  I  seem  in  this  way 
to  be  bringing  some  things  nearer  together,  than  some  may 
think  they  ought  to  be  brought,  as  conscience  and  religion  on 
the  one  side  and  poetry  and  worthy  moral  feelings  on  the  other; 

21—2 


324 


POSITIVISM   AS  OPPOSED  TO  IDEALISM.         [CHAP.  III. 


II  • 


— this  is  not  from  any  lower  notion  of  the  former,  but  from  a 
higher  notion  of  the  latter. 

The  word  imagination  goes  not  unfitly  with  the  word 
'idealism';  and  'ideal'  and  'idealism'  I  use  always,  it  will  have 
been  seen,  in  reference  to  action.  I  mean  by  '  ideal'  anything 
which  we  mentally  set  before  ourselves  as  the  purpose  or  rule 
of  our  action,  and  (as  will  have  been  seen  from  all  that  I  have 
said)  I  do  not  regard  anything  as  a  proper  ideal  for  our  conduct, 
a  true  ideal,  except  as  being  fact  or  part  of  fact,  representing  or 
expressing  fact.  But  then  it  is  not  the  fact  of  our  ordinary 
understanding  (which  can  only  furnish  us  means  for  action,  not 
purposes):  it  is  the  fact  of  our  imagination,  intuition,  belief, 
inward  vision,  however  we  like  to  describe  it. 

We  are  here  at  an  undecidable  issue,  and  I  suppose  so  long 
as  the  world  lasts  there  will  be  people  who  look  at  the  important 
and  most  real  fact  as  the  fact  of  our  senses,  or  our  under- 
standings in  their  ordinary  application,  and  others  who  look 
upon  the  important  and  most  real  fact  as  that  of  imagi- 
nation, intuition,  inward  vision.  There  is  no  logic  to  the 
principles  of  which  we  can  here  appeal.  There  are  different 
criteria  of  reality,  and  what  is  the  reality  of  the  one  is  the  mere 
phenomenon  or  illusion  of  the  other. 

There  is  no  real  boundary  between  morals  and  religion ;  and 
natural  religion,  as  morally  suggested,  is  only  the  going  on  to 
speculate  on  this  fact,  and  to  bring  it  into  practical  application 
for  life,  and  it  may  be  for  devotion.  Nor  is  there  any  real 
boundary  between  religion  and  the  higher  philosophy,  or  I 
could  not  just  now  have  used  the  word  *  speculate '  as  I  did : 
all  the  three,  morals,  religion,  philosophy,  are  conversant  with 
the  same  world  of  higher  fact,  and  positivism  really  disallows 
all. 


APHORISMI   FINALES. 

One  purpose  which  I  have  aimed  at  in  what  I  have  done, 
has  been  to  bring  into  a  single  view  various  kinds  of  con- 
temporary philosophical  literature— and  that  English  literature 
— which  do  not  often  appear  in  such  conjunction. 

It  is  in  a  great  measure  the  fact,  that  anyone  who  enters 
into  one  of  these  lines  of  philosophical  thought  is  unable  to 
appreciate,  or  give  any  value  to,  another.  They  are  looked 
upon  as  out  of  relation  to  each  other,  or  only  in  the  relation  of 
antagonism,  involving  in  it  the  principles  and  interests  most 
important  to  men.  Hence  a  great  amount  of  controversy,  both 
bitter  and  unfruitful ;  bitter,  because  of  the  principles  supposed 
to  be  involved;  unfruitful,  because  the  parties  often  scarcely 
even  profess  to  understand  each  other,  or  enter  into  each 
other's  views ;  and  because  they  will  hardly  listen  to  each  other 
sufficiently  to  understand  in  common,  on  what  principles  or  by 
what  logic  the  question  can  be  decided. 

Nothing  is  more  interesting  to  me  in  Bacon  than  his 
reiterated  abhoiTence  of  the  unfruitful  controversy  in  which 
the  scholastic  times  had  abounded,  and  his  earnest  effort  to 
make  people  leave  off  caring  for  triumph  over  opponents,  and 
set  themselves  to  the  making,  step  by  step  as  they  could,  an 
intellectual  advance.  But  Dr  Whewell  has  well  pointed  out 
that,  when  such  an  advance  was  made,  it  was  in  some  important 
particulars  made  by  means  of  controversy;  that  in  this  way 
men's  views  were  cleared  and  made  more  precise,  their  specu- 
lations as  to  the  truth  were  tested,  the  chaff  separated  from 
what  was  really  valuable.  The  difference  between  the  one  sort 
of  controversy  and  the  other,  the  wretched  dispute  and  the 


324  POSITIVISM   AS  OPPOSED  TO   IDEALISM.         [CHAP.  III. 

this  is  not  from  any  lower  notion  of  the  former,  but  from  a 

higher  notion  of  the  latter. 

The  word  imagination  goes  not  unfitly  with  the  word 
'idealism';  and  'ideal'  and  'idealism'  I  use  always,  it  will  have 
been  seen,  in  reference  to  action.  I  mean  by  '  ideal'  anything 
which  we  mentally  set  before  ourselves  as  the  purpose  or  rule 
of  our  action,  and  (as  will  have  been  seen  from  all  that  I  have 
said)  I  do  not  regard  anything  as  a  proper  ideal  for  our  conduct, 
a  true  ideal,  except  as  being  fact  or  part  of  fact,  representing  or 
expressing  fact.  But  then  it  is  not  the  fact  of  our  ordinary 
understanding  (which  can  only  furnish  us  means  for  action,  not 
purposes):  it  is  the  fact  of  our  imagination,  intuition,  belief, 
inward  vision,  however  we  like  to  describe  it. 

We  are  here  at  an  undecidable  issue,  and  I  suppose  so  long 
as  the  world  lasts  there  will  be  people  who  look  at  the  important 
and  most  real  fact  as  the  fact  of  our  senses,  or  our  under- 
standings in  their  ordinary  application,  and  others  who  look 
upon  the  important  and  most  real  fact  as  that  of  imagi- 
nation, intuition,  inward  vision.  There  is  no  logic  to  the 
principles  of  which  we  can  here  appeal.  There  are  different 
criteria  of  reality,  and  what  is  the  reality  of  the  one  is  the  mere 
phenomenon  or  illusion  of  the  other. 

There  is  no  real  boundary  between  morals  and  religion ;  and 
natural  religion,  as  morally  suggested,  is  only  the  going  on  to 
speculate  on  this  fact,  and  to  bring  it  into  practical  application 
for  life,  and  it  may  be  for  devotion.  Nor  is  there  any  real 
boundary  between  religion  and  the  higher  philosophy,  or  I 
could  not  just  now  have  used  the  word  *  speculate '  as  I  did : 
all  the  three,  morals,  religion,  philosophy,  are  conversant  with 
the  same  world  of  higher  fact,  and  positivism  really  disallows 
all. 


APHORISMI   FINALES. 

One  purpose  which  I  have  aimed  at  in  what  I  have  done, 
has  been  to  bring  into  a  single  view  various  kinds  of  con- 
temporary philosophical  literature — and  that  English  literature 
— which  do  not  often  appear  in  such  conjunction. 

It  is  in  a  great  measure  the  fact,  that  anyone  who  enters 
into  one  of  these  lines  of  philosophical  thought  is  unable  to 
appreciate,  or  give  any  value  to,  another.  They  are  looked 
upon  as  out  of  relation  to  each  other,  or  only  in  the  relation  of 
antagonism,  involving  in  it  the  principles  and  interests  most 
important  to  men.  Hence  a  great  amount  of  controversy,  both 
bitter  and  unfruitful ;  bitter,  because  of  the  principles  supposed 
to  be  involved;  unfruitful,  because  the  parties  often  scarcely 
even  profess  to  understand  each  other,  or  enter  into  each 
other's  views ;  and  because  they  will  hardly  listen  to  each  other 
sufficiently  to  understand  in  common,  on  what  principles  or  by 
what  logic  the  question  can  be  decided. 

Nothing  is  more  interesting  to  me  in  Bacon  than  his 
reiterated  abhoiTence  of  the  unfruitful  controversy  in  which 
the  scholastic  times  had  abounded,  and  his  earnest  effort  to 
make  people  leave  off  caring  for  triumph  over  opponents,  and 
set  themselves  to  the  making,  step  by  step  as  they  could,  an 
intellectual  advance.  But  Dr  Whewell  has  well  pointed  out 
that,  when  such  an  advance  was  made,  it  was  in  some  important 
particulars  made  by  means  of  controversy;  that  in  this  way 
men's  views  were  cleared  and  made  more  precise,  their  specu- 
lations as  to  the  truth  were  tested,  the  chaff  separated  from 
what  was  really  valuable.  The  difference  between  the  one  sort 
of  controversy  and   the  other,  the  wretched  dispute  and  the 


\\ 


326 


APHORISMI   FINALES. 


APHORISMI   FINALES. 


327 


profitable  discussion,  consists  in  such  particulars  as  these :  that 
in  the  one  case  people  do  not,  in  the  other  they  do,  respect 
their  adversaries  as  seekers,  in  common  with  themselves,  of 
truth ;  that  in  the  one  case  they  do  not,  in  the  other  they  do, 
acknowledge  certain  principles  in  common,  a  reference  to  which 
is  to  be  taken  as  deciding  the  controversy ;  that  in  the  one  case 
they  argue  ad  populum,  looking  at  their  adversaries'  case  from 
their  own  point  of  view  only,  under  which  circumstances  it  is 
likely  enough  to  seem  absurd,  or  even  perhaps  immoral,  and  so 
to  provoke  a  laugh  or  indignation ;  in  the  other  case  they  argue 
as  before  a  judge,  and  study  their  adversary's  view  to  find  its 
strong  and  its  weak  points,  in  order  to  determine  what  is  the 
real  truth  in  the  matter. 

It  is  because  I  have  a  strong  feeling  that  the  best,  and  it 
may  be  the  only,  preventive   of  foolish   controversy  is   good 
discussion,  that  I  have  taken  the  various  books  which  I  have 
spoken  of  and  brought  them  successively  into  relation  with  a 
view  of  my  own,  as  a  means  both  of  testing  and  of  illustrating 
my  own  view,  and  also  of  showing  how  they  help  to  the  dis- 
covery of  the  truth.     Even  supposing  our  view  of  any  one  of 
these  books,  or  of  books  like  them,  is  that  it  is  thoroughly  false ; 
such  a  view  is  of  no  value  unless  we  understand  the  book ;  and 
we  cannot  understand  it  without  comparing  it  with  others  on 
the  same  subject.     Of  course  the  book  might  be  not  only  false, 
but  worthless :  I  do  not  think  this  is  the  case  with  any  of  the 
books  which  I  have  noticed  or  referred  to.     It  is  not  in  regard 
of  its  authors  that  English  philosophy  seems  to  me  deficient. 
What  seems  to  me  more  deficient  is  attention  and  interest  on 
the  part  of  readers.     The  reason  of  this,  if  it  is  so,  is  probably 
in  part  because,  on  any  subject  not  immediately  relating  to 
practical  life,  there  really  is  less  willingness  on   the  part  of 
readers  to  give  attention,  to  think  out  a  thing,  or  to  follow  an 
argument,  than  there  was  a  century  ago.    But  I  think  it  is  due 
also  in  part  to  the  advance  in  philosophy  on  the  part  of  the 
authors:  to  its  greater  breadth,  and  depth,  coupled  with  the 
want  of  relation  between  these^  authors,  and  their  depreciation 
of  each   other.     The   consequence   is,  that  people   are   more 
puzzled,  than    they   used   to   be,   as   to   what   philosophy   is. 


Rightly  or  wrongly,  a  century  ago  people  had  certain  prin- 
ciples upon  which  they  went,  and  so  had  faith  in  thought  as 
likely  to  lead  to  a  result.  At  the  present  time  we  have  various 
authors  each,  I  suppose,  with  a  certain  number  of  disciples  too 
much  despising  those  beyond  their  own  circle,  while,  on  account 
of  the  apparent  absence  of  a  common  purpose  and  any  common 
principles,  there  is  on  the  part  of  people  beyond  these  circles 
too  great  a  scepticism  and  neglect  of  all. 

The  same  is  to  be  said  about  philosophy,  mental  and  moral, 
as  a  part  of  education,  actual  or  possible.  What  is  it  ?  What 
is  agj-eed  upon  it  ?  What  are  its  principles,  and  what  institutes 
could  be  written  about  it  ?  In  speaking  thus  about  philosophy 
I  would  not  be  understood  to  imply  that  in  the  idea  of  what 
are  well-established  branches  of  education,  say  even  classics  and 
mathematics,  there  is  very  great  agreement,  or  that  such  as  there 
may  be  is,  necessarily,  of  a  very  valuable  kind.  To  whatever 
extent  agreement,  as  to  what  constitutes  a  subject  of  education 
and  the  manner  of  teaching  it,  is  the  result  only  of  usage,  it 
has  advantages,  and  they  are  very  great  ones,  but  it  has  also  dis- 
advantages. In  the  absence  of  usage,  philosophical  instruction 
has  to  go  upon  what  is  reasonable  or  useful ;  and  the  application 
of  this  test  is  difficult  enough.  But  for  any  such  instruction  to 
be  even  possible,  one  thing  is  necessary,  viz.  that  the  people 
who  teach  it  should  understand  one  another,  and  should  more 
or  less  respect  each  other's  studies  or  views.  In  mathematics, 
e.g.,  or  classics,  with  whatever  ditference  of  taste  or  view,  there 
is  common  ground  upon  which  all  meet :  the  nature  of  particular 
questions  proposed  is  understood  more  or  less  by  all  who  have 
pursued  the  subject.  Wherever  this  sort  of  common  under- 
standing has  not  been  brought  about  by  usage,  and  yet 
education  is  to  be  carried  on,  there  is  needed  that  people 
should  not  only  think  accurately  in  their  own  particular  way 
and  line,  but  should  also  take  some  pains  to  understand  the 
views  of  others,  and  to  bring  these  into  relation  with  their  own. 
Of  course  what  is  thus  desirable  from  the  point  of  view  of 
instruction  of  others  is  equally  so  in  relation  to  a  man's  own 
mind,  if  it  is  to  have  anything  of  a  liberal  character,  if  he  is  to 
be  anything  more  than  a  mere  specialist,  a  sort  of  artizan  in 


328 


APHORISMI   FINALES. 


thought,  with  one  thing  he  is  capable  of  doing  or  thinking  of, 
and  nothing  else. 

There  are  various  things,  both  in  regard  of  science  and  of 
education,  which  make  this  more  difficult   just  now  than  it 
sometimes  has  been.     To  speak  of  the  latter :  the  strong  desire 
of  thoroughness  in  education  in  some  respects  defeats  its  own 
purpose.     We  ought  ourselves  to  be  liberal-minded,  and  a  main 
thing  which  we  have  to  teach  is  the  being  so.     But  when  any 
great  effort  is  used,  to  secure  the  learning  of  particular  things, 
under  strong  pressure,  there  cannot  but  be  danger  of  checking 
liveliness  of  mind,  of  confining  thought  in  a  narrow  channel,  of 
attaching   unreasonable  importance  to  technical   accuracy,  of 
want  of  interest  in,  and  sympathy  for,  other  thought,  of  looking 
upon  intellectual  pursuits  as  a  business  to  be  attended  to  with 
energy  in  business   hours,   rather  than  as   that  which   gives 
interest  and  meaning  to  life,  of  want  of  opportunity  and  in- 
clination for  that  measuring  of  thought  with  thought  at  the 
same  or  a  higher  level,  which  is  real  intellectual  association. 
This  is  all  on  the  part  of  the  teacher:  of  disadvantages  on  the 
part  of  the  taught  I  say  nothing  here,  for  indeed  on  any  matter 
of  education  I  speak  with  very  little  confidence.     But  what  I 
mean  by  liberal-mindedness,  as  distinguished  in  some  respects 
from  the  characters  of  mind  which  I  have  last  mentioned,  is 
this :  an  interest  in  intellectual  pursuits,  of  some  one  kind,  for 
one's  self;   an  interest  in  other  intellectual  pursuits  as  intel- 
lectual, an  interest  graduated  indeed,  some  of  the  pursuits  being 
nearly  allied  with  our  own,  some  not  so ;   but  a  sympathetic 
interest  in  all  of  them,  as  what  others  are  doing  their  work  in, 
just  as  we,  mentally  at  least,  should  be  in  ours;   sl  care  for 
accuracy,  so  far  as  it  is  what  real  knowledge  and  clearness  of 
thought  will  produce,  but  a  superiority  to  that  servile  dread  of 
inaccuracy  and  mistake,  which  would  keep  a  man  from  ever 
hazarding  a  thought  or  a  word  beyond  the  subject  which  he  has 
(we  might  say)  professionally  studied ;  a  reasonable  confidence 
in  our  own  knowledge  and  thought,  if  only  we  can  justify  it  to 
ourselves  as  conscientious;   a  willingness  to  measure  it  with 
that  of  others,  whether  in  reading  or  otherwise ;  and  a  candour 
in  giving  full  credit  to  theirs.     The  opposite  to  this  is  the 


APHORISMI   FINALES. 


329 


temper,  where  there  is  contempt  and  jealousy  of  all  subjects 
but  our  own,  carelessness  of  thinking  because  we  have  no  faith 
either  in  ourselves  or  in  any  results  of  thought,  fear  almost  of 
speaking  on  any  subject  of  real  interest  for  fear  of  committing 
ourselves  or  falling  into  error,  intolerance  without  real  (because 
without  grounded)  belief  in  what  we  are  attached  to. 

Places  of  learning  are,  it  seems  to  me,  as  important  in 
the  view  of  cultivating  this  spirit  by  bringing  different  studies 
together,  as  they  are  for  what  is  directly  taught:  and  it  is 
possible  sometimes  that  the  energy  of  the  direct  teaching,  good 
in  itself,  may  be  indirectly  injurious  to  the  spirit  above  de- 
scribed. And,  without  going  so  far  as  this,  the  attempt  to 
bring  different  ways  of  thinking  into  relation,  so  as  to  form  a 
branch  of  study,  so  to  speak,  may  be  under  these  circumstances 
more  difficult. 


I 


EPILOGUE. 

The  notion  oi finishing  hardly  belongs  to  these  'rough  notes/ 
which  cannot  be  said  to  have  either  beginning  or  middle,  and 
which,  if  life  be  spared,  I  should  wish  to  take  up  again.  Nor 
should  I  like  to  put  forth  anything  so  desultory  and  fragmentary 
as  much  that  is  here  contained,  unless  I  entertained  both  on  the 
one  side  the  hope  that  I  might  be  able  at  a  future  time  to 
exhibit  it  in  another  form  more  clearly,  and  on  the  other  side 
the  fear  of  promising  myself  in  this  respect  too  much,  and  the 
desire  that  in  any  case  what  I  have  thought  on  these  subjects 
might  do  something  to  help  the  thought  of  others. 

Had  the  purpose  of  what  I  have  written  had  reference  to 
the  intelligence  only,  and  been  what  could  bear  no  fruit  but 
that  of  clearer  and  juster  thought,  I  should  not  think  it  had 
been  at  all  in  vain.  In  the  midst  of  the  difficulty  in  which  one 
is  placed  as  to  what  to  believe  in  and  to  trust  to  in  this  world 
of  hollownesses,  I  do  believe  in  human  intelligence :  and  I  do 
this,  I  think,  very  mainly  because  I  recognize  in  human  imagi- 
nation not  a  rival  of  it,  but  a  servant  or  a  helpful  sister.  I  have 
a  belief— of  course  such  a  belief  can  be  no  more  than  a  sort  of 
moral  confidence,  and  can  hardly  have  intellectual  grounds— 
that  the  more  we  can  find  out  in  any  way  about  ourselves,  our 
human  life  and  powers,  and  our  real  prospects,  the  better  and 
the  happier  we  shall  be :  and  I  wonder,  alike  at  those  whose 
minds  are  indifferent  to  thought  about  such  things,  at  those 
who  are  afraid  of  it  and  discourage  it,  and  at  those  who  think 
It  hopeless  and  foolish,  and  recommend  us  to  satisfy  ourselves 
with  'living  by  bread  alone.' 

Supposing  then  what  I  have  written  were  good  for  nothing 


EPILOGUE. 


331 


j 

" 


but  to  rectify  one  or  two  errors  of  thought,  and  to  contribute  in 
this  way  something  to  truth,  I  should  not  think  this  little :  and 
so  anxious  am  I  that  it  should  do  this,  that  I  am  jealous  of 
looking  too  much  forward  to  any  moral  or  practical  result  which, 
if  followed  up,  it  may  have.  My  own  feeling  about  this  latter 
is  that  it  is  likely  to  be  best  consulted  by  the  making  as 
sure  as  possible  of  truth.  But  then  I  believe  in  truth  as 
productive  of  such  result,  and  I  think  I  see  the  way  in  which 
the  views  which  I  have  given,  and  which  I  suppose  to  be  true, 
are  thus  productive.  I  do  not  mean  to  deny  that  this  heightens 
my  interest  in  them :  but,  as  I  have  said,  I  believe  in  in- 
telligence and  truth,  because  they  are  the  most  fruitful  of  all 
things,  and  because,  if  we  are  single-hearted  in  our  devotion 
to  them,  they  will  not  betray  us,  or  show  us  only  what  we  had 
better  have  been  ignorant  of. 

But  I  think  I  see  several  ways  in  which  the  view  which  I 
have  taken  is  likely  to  be  fruitful  in  good  result,  and  I  will 
mention  them. 

1.  My  aim  in  trying  to  clear  the  ground  from  the  wrong  noo- 
psychology  or  mis-psychology,  is  in  order  that  we  may  have  in- 
stead of  it  a  good  physio-psychology,  such  as  now  seems  possible. 
To  me  however  it  does  not  seem  that  we  ever  shall  have  such  a 
thing,  unless  we  can  clear  our  minds  from  the  thought  that  it 
will  do  anything,  one  way  or  the  other,  towards  settling  the 
higher  questions  and  difficulties  of  morality  and  religion.  There 
are  some  portions  of  this  physio-psychology  to  which  I  feel 
individually  a  repugnance,  accompanied  nevertheless  with  a  full 
acknowledgment  of  the  importance  of  them ;  while  on  the  other 
hand  there  are  other  portions,  such  as  the  nature  of  the  in- 
telligence of  the  inferior  animals,  and  the  circumstances  and 
history  of  the  different  races  of  men,  in  which  I  cannot  but 
think  discoveries  of  great  value  could  be  made.  But  all  physio- 
psychology  seems  to  me  to  be  vitiated  by  the  want  of  clearness 
of  view  as  to  its  relation  to  the  higher  philosophy  and  to  morals. 
I  do  not  think  discoveries  will  be  made  in  it,  even  in  its  own 
sphere,  so  long  as  the  singleness  of  look  towards  truth  in  it  is 
hindered  by  either  the  fear  or  the  hope  on  the  part  of  the 
investigator  that  man  will  be  proved  to  be  no  more  than  an 


1 


332 


EPILOGUE. 


animal,  or  so  long  as  his  science  is  under  the  suspicion  of  being 
likely  to  prove  this.  I  do  not  think  there  will  be  a  good  physio- 
psychology  without  a  good  philosophy,  and  I  think  the  converse 
is  true  also.  To  me,  human  consciousness  and  freedom — 
suggesting  to  us  a  personal  existence  more  real  than  that  even 
of  the  universe,  suggesting  moral  responsibility,  hope  of  future 
life,  relation  to  God,  or  the  mind  which  originated  the  universe — 
are  things  quite  unafFectable,  a  priori,  by  anything  which  physio- 
psychology  can  discover,  and  which  any  consideration  how  the 
human  race  has  come  physically  to  be  what  it  is,  or  how  it  is 
related  to  other  organized  races,  has  nothing  to  do  with.  The 
study  of  mind  and  intelligence  from  the  point  of  view  of 
consciousness  is  what  I  have  called  '  philosophy.'  The  study  of 
intelligence,  that  is  animal  intelligence  (human,  as  animal, 
included),  so  far  as  it  can  phenomenally  be  studied,  is  the  main 
part  of  physio-psychology.  I  recognize  intense  interest  in  it: 
for  intelligence,  even  thus  studied,  is  more  interesting  than 
anything  not  intelligence :  but  it  will  not  really  come  into  the 
place  of  the  other,  which  starts,  as  I  have  said,  differently. 

2.  I  wish  to  give  what  help  I  can  towards  our  having  a 
good  and  true  view  of  nature,  in  which  logic  and  the  study  of 
our  mind  shall  have  their  proper  place,  without  disturbing  it  or 
being  misapplied.  I  feel  in  some  respects  disposed  to  think, 
that  if  our  physical  philosophers  could  enter  into  each  other's 
studies,  so  that  in  some  degree  physical  study  could  be  looked 
at  as  one,  for  rudimentary  or  institutional  instruction,  this 
would  be  the  fittest  basis  of  education ;  not  indeed  to  be  rested 
in  as  itself  sufficient,  but  because  all  thought,  even  philoso- 
phical, is  so  valueless,  without  some  truth  and  clearness  of  view 
as  to  this\ 


>  The  Epilogue  ends  thus  abruptly.    The  headings  which  follow, '  Idealism,' 
•  Beligion,'  were  no  doubt  intended  to  be  the  subjects  of  future  paragraphs. 


INDEX  TO  PARTS  I.   AND  II. 


Note:  The  references  in  leaded  type  are  to  Part  II.  [the  present  volume),  the 
others  to  Part  I.  {Cambridge,  1865).  Where  a  reference  to  a  chapter  is 
followed  by  a  bracket,  the  references  within  the  bracket  are  to  the  parts  of 
that  chapter.  Special  headings  under  the  index-word  cover  all  the  references 
that  are  separated  only  by  a  single  stop  {.),  i.e.  down  to  the  next  colon. 


A1>1x>tt,  T.  K.  his  criticism  of  Ber- 
keley's Theory  of  Vision,  in  Sight 
and  Touch,  120.  136.  138.  142 :  adv. 
Bain,  on  Space,  137.  196 

Abstraction  special  use  of  term,  2. 17. 
30.  46.  65.  83.  157.  83.  242.  298 

Action  no  less  primitive  in  man  than 
susceptibility,  34 

Active  nature  of  man,  how  revealed 
to  himself,  36-7 

Activity  compared  with  Sensibility 
in  man,  Bk.  II.  c.  v. :  begins  in  the 
form  of  '  immediateness,'  188:  not  a 
result  of  uneasiness,  190-1 

Adstance  (the  phenomenalist  view  of 
the  relation  of  the  knower  to  the 
known),  157.  254.  210-1.  247.  301. 
et  al. :  not  the  method  of  gaining 
knowledge,  301-2 

Adverbs  with  ^x^  the  best  expression  of 
philosophical  truth  4.  87.  97.  98. 108 

Agnoiology    of  Ferrier,  74-5 

Alexander  the  Great,  242-5 

Analogy  between  the  growth  of  know- 
ledge in  the  race  and  in  the  indi- 
vidual, how  far  it  holds,  206-7 

Anaxagoras    318 

Animal  intelligence,  107-10.  cf.  179 

Antithesis  the  Fundamental,  in  Know- 
ledge, V.  sub  voc.  Whewell 

&ircip6KO(r}i.os  the  ♦universe  of  his- 
tory,' 199 


Appearance  identifiable  with  Being 
and  Truth,  176-6.  cf.  178 

Apperception    147 

A  priori  element  in  Knowledge,  48 

Aristotelian  Logic,  151-3 

Aristotle  on  the  \byo%  of  things,  112: 
120:  151:  his  Categories,  151-2. 
160-1.  26:  as  the  founder  of  Psy- 
chology, and  his  conception  of  it, 
Bk.  I.  c.  i. :  viewed  it  as  a  physical 
science,  2,  cf.  6-6 :  on  the  medium 
{to  fxeToiij)  in  sense,  7 :  23 :  263 : 
264 

Axioms,  geometrical,  whether  neces- 
sary or  experiential,  meaning  of  the 
question,  32 :  cf.  97 

Bacon,  Francis  1 :  results  the  test  as 
well  as  the  end  of  knowledge,  13: 
contrasted  with  J.  S.  Mill,  168 :  the 
purpose  of  his  Logic  the  same,  170 : 
did  not  reform  the  methods  of  dis- 
covery, 208.  223  :  Nov.  Org.  com- 
pared with  the  Discours  de  la 
Methode,  224-5:  297:  309 

Bain,  A.  p.  xxvi :  pp.  xli-v  :  quoted, 
93 :  his  view  of  space  as  '  room,'  137. 
196 :  on  the  nervous  organisation, 
264 

Basal    fact  70.  16.  18.  31 

Being  as  ♦  immediate'  thought,  148- 
9,  cf.  176 


334 


INDEX. 


Berkleian  idealism,  what :  4 

Berkeley,  Bishop  73:  93-4:  98: 
99  :  108 :  109  :  114  :  149  :  his  treat- 
ment of  the  problem  of  knowledge, 
36-40 :  on  illusion  in  sense-impres- 
sions, 61-2  :  72  :  79  :  his  Theory  of 
"Vision,  Bk.  I.  c.  i. :  two  ruling 
doctrines  in  it,  118-9 :  his  argument 
as  to  the  perception  of  distance, 
121:  on  the  visual  field  as  'at  the 
eye,'  122-4:  want  of  clearness  in 
him  as  to  what  we  immediately  see, 
125:  his  doctrine  of  visual  sym- 
bolism, 126-30.  134-5.  138.  140-1. 
215-6  :    Sir  W.  Hamilton  on,  162  : 


Betoachment    122  :  306 

Bi-objectalism    119 :  204 

Body,  the    to  be  regarded  as  a  single 

sense,  20-21.  43.  130:  my  body  not 

an  external  thing  in  the  same  way 

as  other  bodies,  71-2 
Boscoyitch,  P6re    96 
Brain  the  organ  of  thought,  237  f .  264  f. 
Brown,  Thomas    89  n.  1:   quoted  by 

Su"  W.  Hamilton,  143 
Buckle,  H.  T.     his  use  of  the  term 

Scepticism,  78 
Butler,  Bishop    quoted,  260 :  on  virtue 

as  natural,  318 

Categories    Aristotle's,  151-2.  160-1. 

26:   J.  S.  Mill's,  160-1.  191-2,  cf. 

228:  235 
Causation    on  the  view    of   it  as   a 

relation  of  sequence,  19-20 
Circularity    of  reasoning,  162.  43.  93. 

96-6. 107 
Circum-ego    or  Non-ego,  36 
Communication    the  phenomenal  fact 

one  of  c.  between  natural  agents 

and  our  body,  7-8  et  pass. 
Comparative  Psychology,  3.  104.  foil. 
Comte,  A.     1 :  201 :  202  :  235  :  246  : 

does    not    always    adhere    to    the 

positivist  standpoint  in  Ethics,  196, 

cf.  sub  voc.  Positivism. 
Conception    Bk.  II.  c.  viii. :  its  nature, 

212 :  its  connection  with  language, 

212-4:  its  object,  226-6 
Consciousness    from  the  first  involves 


a  distinguishing  ourselves  from  some- 
thing, 23-4:  difficulty  of  saying  what 
our  c.  tells  us,  94-7,  cf.  85.  92.  161- 
3:  gives  immediate  assurance  of 
our  own  reality,  mediately  that  of 
the  external  world,  87.  118  f.  174: 
the  '  doubleuess '  in  c,  163-4,  cf.  146 

Continent    10.  26.  20 

Contingent  and  necessary  truth,  217- 
8  :  cf.  75-8.  80-2.  304 

Contingential    v.  sub  voc.  Contingent 

Controversy  in  philosophy,  p.  viii.  its 
use  and  abuse  xxii.  326-6 

Cope,  E.  M.  controversy  with  George 
Grote  on  the  meaning  of  Protagoras' 
doctrine,  Bk.  IV.  c.  i. 

Counter-notion    23  :  81.  194 

Cousin,  V.  190:  polemic  against 
Locke's  theory  of  knowledge,  34. 
36 

Crabbe,  G.    quoted,  44 

Creation    efficient  and  formal,  18 

Criticism  of  ancient  writings,  its 
basis,  262 

Definitions  place  of,  in  science,  29- 
30 

Democritus  quoted  (by  Sir  W.  Hamil- 
ton), 145 

Descartes,  R.  his  '  Cogito  ergo  sum,' 
19.  22.  34,  cf .  79.  148-9,  cf .  166-170 : 
its  truth  not  argumentative,  172. 
178-9 :  81 :  his  Discours  de  la  Me- 
thode  compared  with  Bacon's  Nov. 
Org.f  224-5 :  his  argument  for  the 
existence  and  veracity  of  God,  36-9  : 
his  test  of  truth  in  clear  and  distinct 
ideas,  40-2.  206-7  :  his  view  of  ani- 
mals as  automata,  109 

Descrial  and  presentment,  two  ele- 
ments in  sight  to  be  distinguished, 
116-6 

Dido    28 

Diogenes  Laertius    263 

Education    327  f. 

Ellis,  R.  L.    pp.  xxxv-vii :  on  Bacon, 

13  168 
Epicureanism    296 
Epistemology    its  point  of  view,  84  : 

Real  and  Physical,  1.  3^ 


INDEX. 


335 


Ethics  cannot  be  completely  treated 
from  the  phenomenalist  standpoint, 
178-180.  194-6.  198-202 

Ethology    J.  S.  Mill  on,  198-202 

Existence  is  for  us  a  thought  of  ours, 
whose  nature,  meaning  and  validity 
have  to  be  discussed,  p.  xiv 

Experience  its  relation  to  necessary 
judgments,  30-1 :  phenomenalist 
view  of,  35:  meaning  of  the  word, 
46.  73-4 :  a  misleading  term,  167 : 
its  presuppositions,  133  :  as  a  whole, 
cannot  be  accounted  for  like  its 
parts,  167-9 :  the  primary  '  expe- 
rience '  of  the  mind,  179-80  :  306 

Experience-hypothesis  meaning  and 
ambiguity  of  the,  98-100 

External  confusion  to  which  the  use 
of  the  word  is  liable,  185 

Fact  and  theory,  218-20.  228-30: 
276  :  higher  and  lower  fact  both  in- 
volve thought,  315  f.  321.  324 :  fact 
and  seeming,  241  f. 

Feeling    incommunicable,  18 

Ferrier,  J.  F.  p.  xxvi :  c.  iv. :  120 : 
144 :  229  :  234 :  146  :  his  account  of 
the  true  notion  of  knowledge,  164- 
6:  his  view  that  we  know  our  know- 
ledge of  the  object,  202  :  284 

Force    in  what  experience  known,  37 

Form  notion  of,  51-2 :  and  matter, 
in  knowledge,  215-6.  234 

Fraser,  A.  C.  on  Sir  W.  Hamilton, 
quoted,  80  :  identifies  egoist  and  phe- 
nomenalist forms  of  scepticism,  84 

Freedom    p.  xvii :  177  :  179 :  296 

Qalileo    1 

Generalization    83 

Oenericity     106 :  217-8  :  223-4 

God  our  knowledge  of,  79.  35.  88.  293. 
332 

Grote,  George  on  the  meaning  of  the 
doctrine  of  Protagoras,  Bk.  IV.  c.  i. : 
on  the  right  of  private  judgment, 

Bk.  rv.  0.  u. 

Grote,  John  'Examination  of  the 
Utilitarian  Philosophy'  referred  to, 
pp.  vii-viii:  a  personal  remini- 
scence, 140-9 


Hamilton,  Sir  W.  p.  xxvin.:  p.  xxix: 
his  use  of  the  term  '  consciousness,' 
23:  50:  56:  on  the  relativity  of 
knowledge,  63-4 :  71 :  c.  v. :  117  : 
c.  vii.  (120  :  121 :  use  of  quotations, 
130 :  on  the  immediate  object  of 
vision,  144-5) :  relation  of  his  Logic 
to  his  Metaphysics,  154-6:  use  of 
the  terms  '  phaenomenon '  and  'nou- 
raenon,'  181-3:  views  on  'things- 
in-themselves,'  183-9:  190:  199: 
209 n.  1 :  on  mathematics,  247  n.  1 : 
view  of  substance,  249 :  on  the  in- 
verse relation  of  sensation  and  per- 
ception, 31 :  46  :  Fraser  on,  80-1 : 
84  :  on  the  existence  of  the  external 
world,  86-7 :  his  appeals  to  the 
deliverances  of  consciousness,  161- 
3 :  error  of  his  Natural  ReaUsm, 
222  :  J.  S.  Mill's  criticism  of  his 
views  on  the  relativity  of  know- 
ledge, 267-8 
Harmony  Pre-established  100.  91 
Hartley,  D.    his  theory  of  vibrations, 

236 
Hegel,  G.  W.  F.    190 
Historicalness    302,  cf.  p.  xviii,  169.  97 
History  of  philosophy,  98  n.  1 
Hobbes,  T.     on  imagination,  236 
Human     Intelligence      distinguished 

from  that  of  animals,  249 
Human  Blind,  '  Philosophy  of  the,'  its 
general  error,  p.  ix:  cf.  sub  voc. 
'  Mis-psychology.' 
Hume,  D.  on  knowledge,  36-7 :  on 
impressions  and  ideas,  Bk.  I.  c.  v. : 
on  the  contents  of  our  experience 
as  impression,  64-6 :  67  :  148 :  his 
scepticism,  81-4,  cf.  172-5.  178  :  296 

I  not  a  phaenomenon  of  the  universe, 
133 

Idea  used  in  different  senses  in  the 
consideration  of  knowledge  and  of 
action,  2-3  :  distinguished  from  the 
sensation,  of  Time  and  Space,  25. 
27  :   innate,  67-8 

Idealism  opposed  to  Phenomenalism, 
2-3  :  296-9  :  comprehends  the  posi- 
tivist standpoint,  298 :  in  morals,  315 

Illusion    what,  13,  cf.  62-3 


336 


INDEX. 


Imagfination  209 :  contrasted  with  im- 
pression, 56-6  :  its  place  in  know- 
ledge, 306-9.  cf.  169.  296.  330  :  and 
in  action,  313.  320-3:  Hobbes  on, 
236 

Immediate  knowledge,  meaning  of, 
119-124 :  imm.  thought  or  feeling, 
Bk.  n.  c.  i.  (146-61)  and  c.  ii. :  174  : 
186-7 :  in  relation  to  activity,  190  : 
202-3:  218-9 

Immediateness    99:  Bk.  II.  163.  187 

Impression  error  suggested  by  the 
term,  8:  contrasted  with  imagina- 
tion, 65-6 :  what,  57  :  meaning  of 
calling  it  illusory,  62-3 :  largely 
made  up  of  imagination,  67 :  mean- 
ing and  value  of,  76-7.  173:  =  im- 
mediate thought,  147 

Jnconceiyability  of  the  contrary  as 
test  of  truth,  218-9 

Inconnterconceivableness  218 :  H. 
Spencer's  theory  of,  96-8 

Inform  matter,  109.  234 

Innate  ideas,  67-8 

Instinct    a  misleading  term,  107 

Interested  our  sensations  or  per- 
ceptions all  are,  50 

Interpretation  of  Nature,  c.  xii. 

Intuition  a  misleading  term,  100. 147. 
cf.  164-5  :  meaning  of,  203  :  present 
throughout  the  scale  of  knowledge, 
203-4:  nature  and  place  of,  in 
knowledge,  218-9 :  higher  and  lower, 
307 

Johnson,  Dr    on  Berkeley,  61 
Judgment,  private,  the  right  and  duty 
of,  Bk.  IV.  0.  ii. 

Kant,  I.  ground-thought  of  the  Cri- 
tique of  Pure  Reason,  18:  on  Space, 
109.  114 :  on  the  Manifold,  and  its 
relation  to  experience,  167-8 :  on 
*  reine  Anschauung,'  196 :  his  dual- 
ism, 228 
Kind  what,  for  phenomenalism,  12 
Knowledge  phenomenalist  view  of, 
34-6.  cf.  14  :  involves  from  the  first 
the  distinction  of  subject  and  object, 
47-8  :  kn.  of  acquaintance  and  kn.  of 
judgment,  60-2.  65-6.  122-4.  147-8. 


23-6.  29-30.  Bk.  II.  c.  vii  :  other  ex- 
pressions  for  this  distinction,  201  : 
from  a  philosophical  point  of  view 
what,  57.  cf.  67.  70.  98-105.  148-9  : 
right  view  of,  232.  240 :  growth  of, 
how  to  be  described,  234-5,  and 
conceived,  232.  234-7.  esp.  c.  xii. : 
double  position  of  the  human  mind 
in,  29 :  nature  of,  33.  296 :  Cousin's 
and  Locke's  views  of,  34 :  Descartes 
and  Berkeley  on,  34-42  :  its  founda- 
tions, 100 :  mediate  and  immediate 
kn.  (  =  kn.  of  acquaintance),  120: 
152-3:  an  union  of  indistinction  and 
distinction  of  thought,  153.  cf.  206  : 
process  of,  from  immediateness  to 
reflection,  160,  like  a  pattern  coming 
out,  206.  cf.  303^:  its  relation  to 
the  thought  of  the  individual,  272-6: 
difficulty  of  uniting  the  elements  of 
universality  and  individuality  in, 
281-2.  cf.  287  :  implies  knowableness 
in  the  universe,  29r :  positivist  and 
idealist  views  of,  contrasted,  294-7  : 
the  whole  implied  in  any  part  of  it, 
299  :  relativity  of,  v.  sub  voc.  Rela- 
tivity 

Language     214-7.    224-6:    Berkeley's 

metaphor  of,  applied  to  sense,  39 
Leontes  and  Hermione,  simile  of,  60 
Life    for  phenomenalism  what,  12 
Locality    not  predicable  of  thought, 

17  foil. 
Locke,  J.  point  in  his  use  of  the  term 
♦sensation,'  34  :  108  :  109 :  114  :  155: 
his  theory  of  perception,  192-4 :  use 
of  the  term  'idea,'  216.  cf.  226  :  his 
description  of  knowledge,  34.  90 :  on 
innate  ideas,  34.  57-8 :  on  our  know- 
ledge of  the  external  world,  Bk.  I. 
0.  iv. :  bad  psychology  in,  74-6: 
compared  with  H.  Spencer,  91-5  : 
on  knowledge  as  an  aggregation, 
206-7 
Log^c  its  creations  not  to  be  '  realized,' 
pp.  xii-xiii.  22  foil. :  its  point  of  view 
that  of  the  correctness  of  thought,  210 

Macaulay,  Lord    on  Bacon,  13 
Manifold    (Kant's)  better  called  das 


INDEX. 


387 


verworrene,    or    das    unbestimmte, 
157.  cf.  169 

Mansel,  H.  L.  71 :  doctrine  that  we 
see  the  retinal  image,  89  n.  1 :  cham- 
pion of  regulativism,  319 

Materialism  its  limitations,  Bk.  III. 
c.  i. :  the  great  intellectual  and 
moral  difficulty  in,  248-50:  spirit 
of,  266-7 

Mathematics    112-3 

Matter  what,  126.  140.  176.  186.  26  : 
Sir  W.  Hamilton  on  our  conscious- 
ness of,  126-7  and  seq.:  and  form 
in  knowledge,  215-6.  234 

Matter-of-factlst    80 

Mediate     and  immediate  knowledge 
119-124 

Medium   in  sense-perception,  Whewell 

on  the,  251-8 
Mill,  J.  S.    gives  no  clear  account  of 
*  thinghood,'  p.  xix  :  pp.  xxvi-vii :  p. 
XXX :  Examination  of  Sir  W.  Hamil- 
ton, why  not  referred  to  in  Part  I., 
p.  xxxi :  mistakes  the  relation  of  the 
phenomenal  and  philosophical  stand- 
points, 3:  puts  facts  of  mind  on  a 
level  with  facts  of  matter,  87  n.  1. 
cf.  243  f.:  120:  132:  cc.  viii.  and  ix. 
his    categories,    160-1.    191-2.    cf. 
228  :  confusion  as  to  the  relation  of 
feeling  to  physical  fact,  162-3.  cf. 
107.  170:  on  'things,'  169:  contro- 
versy with  Whewell  about  the  source 
of  conceptions,  173-4:  ethics,  178- 
80:  phenomenalism,  181-9.  cf.  ill: 
confusion  in  his  account  of  percep- 
tion,  192-4.   cf.   153.   c.    xii.  14-6: 
application  of  his  Logic  to  the  moral 
sciences,  194-202.    cf.    178-80:   his 
♦Utilitarianism,'    202:     his    Logic 
more    'notional'    than    Whewell's, 
204-5:   attitude  on  the  relation  of 
Logic  to  Metaphysics,  209:  on  the 
inconceivability  of  the  contrary,  217 : 
on  cause,  222.  19:  on  Bacon,  225  n. 
1:  233:  235:  247:  view  of  substance, 
249:  12:  24:   on  our  knowledge  of 
the   external  world,    43-5.    Bk.    I. 
C.  vii.  243-8.  268:  87:  90:  100:  on 
the  field  of  vision,  124:  his  notion 
that  all  knowledge  is  'acquired  by 

M. 


experience,'  168-9:  possible  charge 
of  visionariness  against,  172 :  theory 
of  thought  as  adstance,  211.  cf.  sub 
voc.  Adstance:  on  the  relation  of 
names  to  thought,  216 :  on  the 
relativity  of  knowledge,  267-9 

Mind  its  proper  creations,  realities, 
p.  xii :  the  universe  a  fact  of,  p. 
xvi :  activity  of,  108 :  passivity  of, 
232:  m.  and  body  form  together 
one  intellective  organisation,  182-4 

Mis-phenomenalism  p.  xiii:  cf.  sub 
voc.  Positivism 

Mis-psychology  general  error  of,  p. 
ix:  134:  153:  228-9:  236-7:  242: 
34:  46-7:  54:  58:  74:  140:  219-22: 
227:  296:  in  H.  Spencer,  92 

Morality  ground  of  the  notion  of, 
297  f.  314-5.  318-9 

Morell,  J.  D.  his  treatment  of  com- 
parative psychology  criticised,  Bk. 
I.  c.  z. 

Natural  Realism,  error  in,  222 
Necessary  and  contingent  truth,  217-8. 
304 

Nerves    editive  and  receptive,  254 

Nominalism    216 

Non-ego  means  primarily  something 
that  controls  and  determines  our 
thought,  180 

Nod-psychology  ( = '  Philosophy  of  the 
Human  Mind'),  Bk.  I.  c.  ii. :  funda- 
mental confusion  in,  1^6:  )(  Phv- 
siopsychology,  78.  150 

Noticing  as  distinguished  from  per- 
ceiving things,  31 

Notionalism  ( = '  realising '  logical 
terms,  p.  xii)  damages  both  phi- 
losophy and  the  physical  view  of 
nature,  p.  xiv:  p.  xxviii :  73:  137: 
147:  156:  182-3:  5-6:  69 
Noumenon   right  and  wrong  meanings 

of  the  word,  181-3 :  178 
Nucentric    x  Cosmocentric,   view  of 
perception,  12 

Object  and  subject,  confusion  in  the 

antithesis,  61-2 
Objiciend    286 
Ontology    84.  186:  2 

22 


338 


INDEX. 


Originality    in  philosophy,  not  impor- 
tant, 130 
Outness    47.  122-4 

Perception  what  it  involves,  9-11: 
its  relation  to  sensation,  30-1.  Bk.  II. 

c.  iv.  210 

Fhaenomenon  the  proper  antithesis 
between  it  and  6v,  78:  spelling 
adopted  in  Expl.  Phil.,  p.  xlvii: 
meaning  of  the  word,  181-3 

Phaenomenology  and  Ontology,  a 
meaningless  distinction,  175.  198 

Phenomenalism  (  =  Positivism,  q.  v.) 
c.  i. :  an  abstraction,  2.  4.  65.  83. 
912-3.  cf.  248-60 :  dreariness  of,  15, 
309:  contrasted  with  the  philoso- 
phical view,  109-10:  confusion  in, 
177-9.  200:  views  nature  too  ex- 
clusively as  a  history,  222:  6:  a 
manner  in  which  we  can  hold,  but 
not  get,  knowledge,  27-8 :  292-3 

Pliilosopby  its  problem,  and  its  rela- 
tion to  physical  enquiry,  p.  xi: 
consists  in  5iaXc/cn*cTj,  pp.  xxi-ii: 
its  nature  and  value,  pp.  xxxvii-xli: 
in  its  different  branches,  one  subject, 
209  n.  1 :  nature  of  progress  in,  231- 
2 :  in  what  it  consists,  316 

Physiology  cannot  hope  to  explain 
feeling,   197-8.     cf.   162.     Bk.  m. 

c.  i. 

Physiometer    32 

Plato  1:  92:  112:  204:  88:  on 
language,  216 :  on  Protagoras  in  the 
Theaetetus,  Bk.  IV.  c.  i.:  his  Dia- 
lectic, 276.  cf.  pp.  xxi-ii :  on  know- 
ledge,  296-7.  300.  306 

Positivism  ( = ultra-  or  mis-phenome- 
nalism, p.  xiii):  tends  to  make  us 
deny  our  higher  nature,  p.  xv: 
'runs  to  history,'  p.  xviii:  67: 
opposition  to  idealism,  59 :  attitude 
regarding  animal  intelligence,  110: 
cannot  shew  that  the  theories  to 
which  the  mind  tends  to  come  are 
true,  Bk.  I.  c.  ix. :  an  abstraction, 
298:  its  position  described,  293- 
6.  cf.  301-6:  has  no  room  for  a 
moral  system,  296.  297-8.  cf.  313-4. 
317-8:   nor  for  the  beautiful,  298: 


its  dreariness,  15.  309  et  al.:   the 
right  and  the  wrong  p.,  311-2 

Prae-objectal    67.  234 

Presentation  and  representation,  118- 
9  and  sq.:  meaning  of  the  word, 
63:  163 

Presentment  and  descrial,  two  elements 
in  sight  to  be  distinguished,  116-6 

Progress  different  meanings  of,  231: 
individual  and  racial,  206:  of  Know- 
ledge, V.  sub  voc.  Knowledge 

Protagoras  his  dictum  iravruv  fxirpov 
dvdpunros,  Bk.  IV.  C  i. 

Proverse  of  sensation,  (a)  =  the  physio- 
logical side,  261:  relation  to  the 
retroverse,  262.  266-9 :  (6)  =  the 
physical  conditions  that  concur  with 
the  physiological,  263 

Psychology  p.  viii:  Aristotle's  treat- 
ment of,  Bk.  I.  c.  i. :  uselessness  of 
the  common  analyses  in,  306 

Psychophysiology  231-2:  cannot  ex- 
plain thought,  236-40 

Qualities  primary  and  secondary,  253- 
4.  8.  32 :  the  *  looks '  of  a  thing,  177 

Eationary  philosophy,  300:  Bk.  IV. 
c.  ii. 

Real  Epistemology    104 

Real  Logic  considers  the  growth  of 
knowledge  in  the  individual  or  the 
race,  153.  159:  as  analysis  and  as 
organon  of  the  advance  of  know- 
ledge, 171:  as  a  view  of  nature,  or 
of  the  course  of  knowledge,  172  :  1 : 
104 

Reality  its  various  meanings,  32.  27 
f.  44.  77.  140  f . 

Reason  and  Understanding,  307-8 

Reflection  opposed  to  immediateness 
in  thought,  147.  cf.  166-6.  Bk.  II. 
cc.  1.  and  ii.  164.  204.  207 :  inter- 
mediate between  thought  and  action, 
193 :  involves  distinctification  and 
attention,  194.  207.  221-2:  does  not 
add  to  or  distort  the  fact,  221 

Regulativism  38 :  Bk.  V.  c.  iii.  (what 
it  is,  316-6 :  not  the  recognition  that 
our  knowledge  is  partial,  317:  iso- 
lates moral  philosophy  from  pure 


INDEX. 


339 


philosophy  and  natural  religion, 
319-20 :  relation  to  positivism,  320) 

Reid,  T.  92:  93:  94:  117:  quoted 
(ap.  Sir  W.  Hamilton)  136.  138. 
144:  12:  13:  on  'scepticism'  about 
the  material  world,  86 :  on  the  field 
of  vision,  124:  on  consciousness,  161 

Relativism  183:  228-9:  236:  c.  xii.: 
303-6:  312 

Relativity  of  Knowledge,  62-7 :  Bk.  I. 
c.  iv.:  its  philosophical  and  moral 
bearing  distinguished,  268:  not  in- 
volved in  saying  that  all  existence 
implies  a  knowing  subject,  285:  the 
important  form  of,  286-7:  wherein 
wrong,  310-2 

ReUgion    232  f.  319.  322.  331 

Representation    see  Presentation 

Retroverse  of  sensation  (a)  =  the  con- 
scious side,  251-2 :  includes  the 
proverse,  252:  its  double  character 
of  sentience  (q.v.)  and  perception, 
262:  more  important  than  the  pro- 
verse, 256-9:  (6)  =  the  physiological 
conditions,  263 

Revelation    233 

Rightness,  the  feeling  of,  as  dis- 
tinguishing perception  from  imagin- 
ation, 10-11.  cf.  28 

Scale  of  sensation  and  knowledge, 
107:  210-3:  217:  223:  241:  250: 
30 :  106  f.  181 

Scepticism  various  forms  of  it  in 
philosophy,  Bk.  I.  c.  viU. :  means 
really  confusion,  296 

Schelling,  F.  W.  J.     190 

Science  the  reason  of  its  former  slow 
progress,  200 

Self- consciousness  different  meanings 
of,  108-10 :  its  development  from 
*  immediateness,'  Bk.  II.  c.  iii.  cf. 
146-6 :  172  :  its  relation  to  percep- 
tiveness,  181 

Self-self    145-6 

Sensation  phenomenalist  view  of,  5- 
8 :  ambiguity  of  the  term,  19 :  scale 
of,  c.  vi.  30  f.:  used  to  include  feeling 
and  thought,  106.  c.  vi.:  should  hold 
good  for  all,  if  for  me,  269-70.  cf.  274. 
278-80.  282.  287 


Sensationalism    Bk.  rv.  c.  i. 

Sense  the  body  all  one  sense,  43. 130 : 
s.  and  thought  in  knowledge  at  every 
stage,  213.  216.  257-8.  220-2.  226-7: 
distinction  between  taste-sense  and 
handling-sense,  39 

Sensibility  distinguished  from  sensive- 
ness,  186 

Sensive  powers     19 

Sensiveness  not  an  inferior  kind  of 
knowledge,  204-6 

Sentience  =the  feeling  of  pleasure 
and  pain,  186.  252 

Sextus  Empiricus    263 

Sight  nature  of,  39-47 :  presentment 
and  descrial  distinguished  in,  Bk.  I. 
c.  xi.  esp.  115 :  relation  to  touch,  134. 
cf.  130-5. 142 :  mental  experience  on 
recovery  of  sight,  122  f. 

Simplicius    263 

Society  fundamentalness  to  an  intelli- 
gence, overlooked  in  the  '  Philosophy 
of  the  Human  Mind,'  212-4 

Socrates  318 

Soul  why  the  term  is  here  avoided, 
182.  238 

Space  as  felt,  26-7.  32-3.  37:  con- 
sidered too  largely  as  'lighted  space,' 
22.  28 :  how  far  a  form  given  by 
thought,  108.  Ill:  and  Time,  166: 
in  what  sense  subjective,  211-2.  cf. 
239 :  in  what  sense  seen,  136-7 : 
Bk.  II.  c.  vi.  (the  counter-notion  of 
matter,  194 :  Kant's  pure  perception 
of,  196 :  as  '  pure  phenomenalism,' 
197  :  the  imagination  not  the  notion 
of,  198:  compared  with  Time  199- 
200) 

Spencer,  H.  54 :  69 :  70 :  Bk.  I.  c.  ix. 
(his  Principles  of  Psychology,  91 : 
wrong  psychology  in,  92-8:  on  the 
relation  of  body  and  mind,  101-3) : 
on  comparative  psychology,  Bk.  I. 
C.  X. :  146 

Stewart,  D.  on  Formal  Logic,  153: 
quoted  and  criticised,  12.  13-20.  cf. 
26-32 :  on  cause,  19.  cf.  101 :  on  the 
principle  that  the  mind  can  only 
act  where  it  is,  20-1.  cf.  102 

Subject  and  object,  confusion  in  the 
antithesis,  61-2.  176.  180 


340 


INDEX. 


Substance  the  notion  of  (esp.  in 
Whewell)  246-51 :  and  attribnte, 
47.  226-7 :  is  the  totality  of  its  quali- 
ties, 177 

Substratum  unknowable,  a  figment, 
26  foil.  88  foil. 

Symbolism,  visual,  Berkeley's  theory 
of,  126-30.  134-6.  138.  140-1.  216-6 

Teleology  (=the  science  of  the  ends 
of  conduct)  J.  S.  Mill  on,  199-202 

Tests  of  truth     12.  213  f. 

Thing  =what  we  may  use  or  make, 
51 :  relation  to  thought,  250 :  double 
meaning  in  the  notion  of,  286: 
things-in-themselves,  60-2.  65-7. 
74-5.  123.  181-2.  187.  244.  246 

Thinghood  106.  110-2:  123:  =the 
proper  thoughtness  of  a  thing,  188: 
10:  47:  177-8 

Thinking  spatially    108 

Thinkingness  )(  Thoughtness,  140. 
82.  163 

Thought  different  theories  of,  210: 
not  divided  from  sense  in  knowledge, 
220-2.  226-7:  as  process  of  thinking, 
226 

Thought-self    146-7 

Time  the  only  element  common  to 
feehng  and  phenomenal  fact,  24-5: 
compared  with  Space,  199-200 

Touch  two  elements  in,  of  feeling 
and  handling,  122:  not  a  special, 
but  the  general  corporeal  sense,  131-6 

Transference    special  use,  105.  107 

Truth  phenomenally  considered,  what, 
12-13.  cf.  60  :  the  distinction  of  em- 
pirical and  necessary,  as  belonging 
only  to  our  manner  of  arriving  at  it, 
30-2.  cf.  304-5 :  as  conformity  with 
fact,  86:  as  transference  of  fact  into 
thought,  202:  its  source  in  *im- 
mediateness,'  206.  209.  219  :  as  what 
is  good  for  all  intelligence,  213.  cf. 
Bk.  rv.  c.  ii.  310-2:  the  opinion  of 


the  majority  no  test  of  it,  272.  280 : 
the  notion  non-relative,  287:  posi- 
tivist  view  of,  296 

Ultra-phenomenalism  =  Positivism, 
q.v.,  p.  xiii 

Understanding  and  Beason    307-8 

Unity  only  a  supposition,  in  phe- 
nomenalism, 11-2.  cf.  45-6.  49-51. 
57 :  conception  of,  113  :  as  a  '  higher 
intuition'  involved  in  all  knowledge, 
217-22 

Utilitarianism  its  connection  with 
positivism,  296:  J.  S.  Mill's,  con- 
fuses fact  and  ideal,  202 


VisioB    theory  of,  Bk.  I.  c.  xii. 
heads  of  controversy  in,  117 


three 


Want  as  fact  and  as  felt,  190 
Whewell,  W.  p.  xxvii:  p.  xxxi:  mis- 
understands the  relation  of  the  phe- 
nomenal and  philosophical  stand- 
points, 3 :  on  primary  and  secondary 
qualities,  47:  57:  111:  controversy 
with  J.  S.  Mill  on  the  source  of 
conceptions,  172-3.  211.  219-20. 
234-5.  240-1 :  c.  x.  (arrangement  of 
his  works,  203:  his  logic  more  'real' 
than  Mill's,  204-9:  on  the  funda- 
mental antithesis  in  knowledge,  213- 
6.  220.  cf.  c.xi.  168-9:  on  the  incon- 
ceivability of  the  contrary,  218 :  on 
cause,  222 :  as  combining  the  ideas 
of  Descartes  and  Bacon,  224-5) : 
c.  xi.  (wrong  psychology  in,  228-33) : 
c.  xiii.  (on  substance,  246-51 :  on 
the  medium  in  sense-perception, 
251-8) :  3 :  dualism  in,  228 
Will     189 

Zoocosm  =the  system  of  kinds,  as 
explicable  by  natural  laws,  p.  xvii. 
253.  106  f. 


CAMBRIDGE  :     PRINTED    BY   J.    AND   C.    F.    CLAY,    AT   THE    UNIVERSITY    PRESS. 


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